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HYMNS 



FEEDEKICK WILIIAI FABER, D.B: 

Witk a Sketch of Ms Life 



Non vox sed votum, non chordula musi ca sed cor, 
Non damans sed amans, caiitat in aure Dei. 

Gloifs. in Cap. Cantantes, 




NEW YORK 
E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 

713 BROADWAY. 
1877 






Copyright. 
E. P. BUTTON & Co. 

1875- 







CONTENTS. 

PART FIRST. 

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY. 



The Unity of God 9 

The Holy Trinity lo 

Majesty Divine ^3 

God 16 

Tlie Eternity of God ^7 

The Greatness of God 20 

The Will of God 22 

The Eternal Father . 25 

Our Heavenly Father 28 

My Father 3° 



IV CONTENTS, 

PAGE. 

The God of my Childhood 32 

The Eternal Word 35 

Jesus is God 38 

Jesus my God and my All 40 

The Eternal Spirit 42 

Veni Creator 45 

Veni Sancte Spiritus 46 

Holy Ghost, come down upon Thy Children ... 47 



PART SECOND. 

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS. 

The Life of our Lord 51 

Christmas Night 67 

The Infant Jesus 68 

The Three Kings 70 

The Purification 73 

Lent 75 

The Agony 77 

Jesus Crucified 80 

The Precious Blood 81 

Blood is the Price of Heaven 83 

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour 85 

Jesus Risen 87 

The Descent of the Holy Ghost 88 

The Sacred Heart 90 

PART THIRD. 

THE FAITH AND THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 

Thanksgiving after Communion 97 



CONTENTS. V 

^ PAGE. 

Longing for God • . ; 99 

Evening Hymn loi 

Tlie Thought of God 103 

The Fear of God . . 105 

Peevishness loS 

Predestination xii 

Tlie Right must win u^ 

Desire of God 117 

School Hymn 121 

The True Shepherd 122 

Come to Jesus 124 

Invitation to the Mission . 126 

Tlie Wages of Sin 128 

A Good Confession i-jo 

The Act of Contrition 132 

Conversion 136 

The Work of Grace 138 

Forgiveness of Injuries 139 

The World 141 

The End of Man 143 

Tlie Remembrance of Mercy 145 

The Cliristian's Song on his March to Heaven. . . 147 

Fight for Sion . v 14S 

Perfection 149 

The Gifts of God 151 

True Love I54 

Self-love 158 

Harsh Judgments 160 

Distractions in Prayer 164 

Sweetness in Prayer ... - 167 

Dryness in iPrayer 168 

The Pain of Love . , lyi 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Low Spirits 173' 

Light in Darkness 175 

Divine Favors . . . ' 178 

PART FOURTH. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

Tlie Creation of the Angels 181 

The Unbelieving World 183 

The Old Labourer 186 

Music 189 

The Starry Skies 193 

The Sorrowful World 196 

Autumn 200 



PART FIFTH. 

- THE LAST THINGS. 

The Memory of the Dead 203 

The Eternal Years 205 

After a Death 208 

The Pilgrims of the Night 211 

Wishes about Death 214 

The Paths of Death 216 

The Length of Death 21S 

The House of Mourning 221 

The Violence of Grief 225 

Deep Grief . 229 

Grief and Loss ^3^ 

The Shadow of the Rock 236 



CONTENTS. VII 

PAGE. 

A Child's Death 239 

Tha Land beyond the Sea". 243 

The Shore of Eternity 245 

Paradise . 248 

Heaven 250 





INDEX OF FIEST LINES. 



PAGE. 

Ah, dearest Lord ! I cannot pray 164 

All hail ! dear Conqueror 1 all hail ! S'/ 

Alone ! to land alone upon that shore ! 245 

Amid the eternal silences 35 

At last Thou art come, little Saviom- ! ...... 6y 

Autumn once more begins to teach •. , 200 

Blest is the Faith, divine and strong 147 

Blood is the price of heaven 83 

Come ! Holy Spirit ! from the height 46 

Days, weeks, and months have gone, O Lord . . ,229 
Dear Little One 1 how sweet Thou art 68 



X tNbEX OF FIRST LINES. 

PAGE, 

Father and God ! mine endless doom 1 1 1 

Father 1 Creator! Lord Most High! 51 

Father ! the sweetest, dearest Name 25 

Fever, and fret, and aimless stir 1 73 

Fountain of Love ! Thyself true God 1 42 

Full of glory, full of wonders 13 

Gloom gathered round us every hour 221 

Hail, Jesus! Hail! who for my sake 81 

Hark! hark! my soul! angelic songs are swelling .211 

Have mercy on us, God Most High ! 16 

He comes ! He comes ! that mighty Breath .... 88 
Holy Ghost ! come down upon Thy children ... 47 

How gently flow the silent years 99 

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death! 216 

How shalt thou bear the Cross that now 205 

How the light of heaven is stealing 138 

I come to Thee once more, my God 143 

.1 heard the wild beasts in the woods complain . . .196 

I was wandering and weary 122 

I wish to have no wishes left 214 

I worship Thee, sweet Will of God ! 22 

In pul&es deep of threefold Love 181 

Is this retiurning life that thrills 178 

Jesus, gentlest Saviour ! 97 

Jesus is God ! the solid earth 38 

Jesus ! why dost Thou love me so ? 171 

Joy! Joy! the Mother comes T}, 

Lord! art Thou weary of my cry 231 

My fear of Thee, O Lord, exults 105 

My God ! how wonderful Thou art 28 

My God! who art nothing but mercy and kindness . 132 
My Soul! what hast thou done for God? . . . .151 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. XI : 

PAGE. 

Now are the days of humblest prayer 75 

Now fii-st for thee, thou wicked world, 14S 

O Blessed Trinity! 10 

O coma. Creator Spirit! come 45 

O Faith! thou workest miracles 136 

O God! that I could be with Thee 108 

O God! Thy power is vonderful 30 

God ! who wert my childhood's love 32 

O God! whose thoughts are bnghtestlight . . . i6o 

Jesus! God and Man! 121 

O Jesus ! if in days gone by 141 

O Jesus, Jesus ! dearest Lord! 40 

O Lord! my heart is sick 17 

O Lord! when I look o'er the wide-spreading world . 183 
O Majesty unspeakable and di'ead! ...... 20 

O merciful Father ! the blow that we feared ■. . . 225 

O Paradise! O Paradise! 248 

O Soul of Jesus, sick to death! ....... 77 

Oh come and mourn with me awhile! 80 

Oh com? to the msrciful Saviom- who calls you . . 126 

Oh do you hear that voice from heaven 139 

Oh for freedom, for freedom in worshipping God . .117 

Oh for the happy days gone by 168 

Oh how the thought of God attracts 1 49 

Oh I could go through all life's troubles singing . .158 

Oh it is hard to work for God 113 

Oh it is sweet to think 203 

Oh what are the wages of sin .128 

Oh what is this splendom- that beams on me now? . 250 

One God! one Majesty! 9 

Once in the simple thought of God . , 175 

Souls of men! why will ye scatter 124 



XII INDEX OF FIRST L I NFS. 

PAGE. 

Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go . . . . . . . loi 

Sweet Saviour! take me by tlie hand , . . . . .218 

That music breathes all through my spirit . . . .180 

The chains that have bound me are flung to the wind 120 

The grief that was delayed so long 208 

The Land beyond the Sea ! 24-3 

The Shadow of the Rock 2 -'6 

The starry skies, they rest my soul 193 

The thought of God, the thought of Thee .... 103 

Think well how Jesus trusts Himself 154 

Thou touchest us lightly, God! in our grief . . . 239 
Unchanging and unchangeable before angelic eyes . 90 

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour! 85 

What end doth he fulfil 186 

Who are these that ride so fast o'er the desert's sandy 

road 70 

Why art thou sorrowful, servant of God ? .... 145 
Why dost thou beat so quick, my heart ? 167 








* Frederick William Faber, the seventh 
child of Thomas Henry Faber, Esq., of 
Huguenot origin, was born on the 28th of 
June, 1814, at the Vicarage of Calverley, 
Yorkshire, England, of which place his grand- 
father, the Rev. Thomas Faber, was the in- 
cumbent. From his earliest years Frederick 
Faber gave promise of remarkable power of 
mind, which his parents, v/ho were persons of 

*This sketch is compiled from " The Life and Letters of 
Frederick Wm. Faber, D.D." 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

considerable ability, carefully fostered. Owing 
to the death of three children immediately 
preceding him, he was the object of his 
mother's special affection. Ardent and im- 
pulsive he entered upon everything, whether 
work or play, with eagerness and determina- 
tion. 

One of the principal ingredients in his char- 
acter was its poetic element, the development 
of which was materially assisted by the beau- 
tiful scenes in which his childhood was 
passed. His mother died in 1829, and four 
years later he lost his father. 

After studying at Harrow School, he entered 
Balliol College, Oxford, in 1832. His pre- 
possessing appearance and remarkable talent, 
together with conversational gifts of a very 
high order, made him a general favourite. His 
religious ideas had already assumed a very 
definite shape, for the spiritual training of his 
parents had indoctrinated him with the Cal- 
vinistic views which were traditional in bis 
family, and in which there was much to attract 
him ; his ardent nature was pleased with the 
warmth of expression which they encouraged, 
whilst the personal intercourse between God 
^nd the soul, which their theory of faith pro- 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

tnoted, was well suited to one of his affection- 
ate temperament. 

From the time of his arrival at Oxford, he 
attended the parochial services at St. Mary's, 
and soon became an enthusiastic admirer of 
the Rev. John Henry Newman, then vicar of 
that church ; he also threw himself eagerly into 
the great movement, begun in 1833, for the 
revival of Church principles, the chief exposi- 
tion of which was the series of " Tracts for 
the Times." 

As Frederick Faber had always most ear- 
nestly desired to devote himself to the service 
of God, he looked forward eagerly to the time 
when he could receive ordination as a minister 
of the -Church of England. As soon, therefore, 
as his election to a fellowship at University 
College, in January, 1837, gave him a secure 
position, he set to work vigourously at the task 
of preparing himself for orders. 

When the long vacation arrived he took a 
small reading party to Ambleside, near the 
head of Windermere, and thus began a con- 
nection with that place which lasted for many 
years. Among the. friendships which he 
formed there, the most valued was that of Mr. 
Wordsworth, whose poetry had been the ob- 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

ject of his early admiration, and had contrib- 
uted largely to the formation of .his own poet- 
ical spirit. In after years he used to describe 
the long rambles which they took together 
over the neighbouring mountains, the poet mut- 
tering verses to himself in the intervals of 
conversation. 

On the 6th of August, 1837, Frederick Faber 
received deacon's orders in St. Wilfrid's 
Cathedral, of Ripon, from Dr. Longley, his 
old master at Harrow, and May 26th, 1839, he 
received priest's orders from Bishop Bagot, 
at Oxford. 

Much of the next four years was spent in 
travelling on the Continent with a pupil, and 
a great change was brought about in his feel- 
ings towards the Roman Catholic Church, so 
much so that he was at this time on the point 
of being received into it. 

On returning to England in 1843, Mr. 
Faber lost no time in commencing his work at 
Elton, the Rectory of which had been several 
limes offered to him by his college. 

He had determined to put aside for a while 
his long entertained doubts, and by putting the 
powers of the Church of England to the test 
of practical work hoped to derive a confirma- 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

tion or refutation of his opinions respecting 
them. Materials were not wanting for the ex- 
ercise of his zeal. The parish was in evil 
repute among its neighbors, and had become 
almost a by-word for its intemperance and 
profligacy, but it was not long before the fruit 
of Mr. Faber's exertions manifested itself. 
His preaching soon became very popular and 
the authority and example of the rector won 
over the most disorderly to his side, so that 
regular devotion and honest recreation took 
the place of those scenes of dissipation and 
riot for which it had been notorious. 

Mr. Faber remained in his work in Elton, 
till Sunday, November the i6th, 1845, when, 
at the evening service, he told his people that 
he could not longer remain in the communion 
of the Church of England, and must leave 
them. 

The next day he was admitted into the 
Roman Catholic Church at Northampton. On 
his return from another visit to Rome, he 
founded a Community at Birmingham, and in 
April, 1849, moved to London, in charge of 
the Oratory of St. Philip Neri, at the head of 
which he remained until his death, September 
26th, 1863, aged 49 years. 



O INTRODUCTION. 

The present collection of Hymns was first 
published in 1848, and consisted of a very few 
hymns. It appeared again in 1849, much en- 
larged, and in 1852 a fresh edition, containing 
sixty-six hymns, was published. 

In 1 861, the Author issued an edition with 
[ 50 Hymns, in the Preface to which he says : 
" This is a perfect collection of the Hymns, 
the only one ; but it contains also an addition 
of fifty-six new Hymns, fulfilling with tolera- 
ble accuracy his original conception of what 
the Hymn Book should be and should contain. 
It has been asked for very urgently, and for 
some years, by several persons, who have to 
do with ministering to those with whom, from 
their being in sickness or in sorrow, the 
effort of following a connected prose book is 
hardly to be expected." 

This book of selections from Faber s Hymns 
contains all of the Author's latest revised edi- 
tion, except the Hymns written for the use of 
Roman Catholics, such as those for the fes- 
tivals of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and the 
Holy Family, and for the Devotions in honour 
of them, and the Hymns addressed to the 
Angels and Saints. 

The Author, in closing his Preface, says— 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

" It is an immense mercy of God to allow any 
one to do the least thing which brings souls 
nearer to Him. Each man feels for himself 
the peculiar wonder of that mercy in his own 
case. That our Blessed Lord has permitted 
these Hymns to be of some trifling good to 
souls, and so in a very humble way to con- 
tribute to His glory, is to the Author a source 
of profitable confusion as well as of unmerited 
consolation." 





mm FiEST. 

(3oh arib tl)e ittost ^oi^ Snttilg. 



THE UNITY OF GOD. 

One God ! one Majesty ! 
There is no God but Thee ! 
Unbounded, unextended Unity ! 

Awful in unity, 

O God ! we worship Thee, 

More simply one, because supremely Three ! 

Dread, unbeginning One ! 

Single, yet not alone. 

Creation hath not set Thee on a higher throne. 



lO THE HOLY TRINITY. 

Unfathomable Sea ! 

All life is out of Thee, 

And Thy life is Thy blissful Unity. 

All things that from Thee run, 
All works that Thou hast done, 
Thou didst in honour of Thy being One. 

And by Thy being One, 
Ever by that alone, 

Couldst Thou do, and doest, what Thou hast 
done. 

We from Thy oneness come, 

Beyond it cannot roam. 

And in Thy oneness find our one eternal home. 

Blest be Thy Unity ! 
All joys are one to me, — 
The joy that there can be no other God than 
Thee ! 



THE HOLY TRINITY. 

O Blessed Trinity ! 
Thy children dare to lift their hearts to Tliee, 

And bless Thy triple Majesty ! 
Holy Trinity ! 
Blessed Equal Three, 
One God, we praise Thee. 



THE HOLY TRINITY. 

O Blessed Trinity ! 
Holy, unfathomable, infinite, 
Thou art all Life and Love and Light. 
Holy Trinity! 
Blessed Equal Three, 
One God, we praise Thee. 

O Blessed Trinity ! 
God of a thousand attributes ! we see 
That there is no one good but Thee. 
Holy Trinity ! 
Blessed Equal Three, 
One God, we praise Thee. 

O Blessed Trinity ! 
In our astonished reverence we confess 

Thine uncreated loveliness. 
Holy Trinity ! 
Blessed Equal Three, 
One God, we praise Thee. 



O Blessed Trinity I 
simplest Majesty ! O Three in One ! 
Tliou art for ever God alone. 

Holy Trinity ! 

Blessed Equal Three. 

One God, we praise Thee 



12 THE HOLY TRINITY. 

O Blessed Trinity ! 
The Fountain of the Godhead, in repose, 

For ever rests, for ever flows. 
Holy Trinity ! 
Blessed Equal Three, 
One God, we praise Thee. 

O Blessed Trinity! 
O Unbegotten Father! give us tears 

To quench our love, to calm our fears. 
Holy Trinity ! 
Blessed Equal Three, 
One God, we praise Thee. 

O Blessed Trinity! 
Bright Son ! who art the Father's mind dis- 
played. 
Thou art begotten and not made. 
Holy Trinity! 
Blessed Equal Three, 
One God, we praise Thee 

O Blessed Trinity ! 
Coequal Spirit ! wondrous Paraclete ! 

By Thee the Godhead is complete. 
Holy Trinity ! 
Blessed Equal Three, 
One God, we praise Thee. 



MAJESTY DIVINE. 1 3 

• O Blessed Trinity ! 

We praise Thee, bless Thee, worship Thee 
as one. 
Yet Three are on the single Throne. 
Holy Trinity ! 
Blessed Equal Three, 
One God, we praise Thee. 

O Blessed Trinity ! 
In the deep darkness of .prayer's stillest night 

We worship Thee blinded with light. 
Holy Trinity ! 
Blessed Equal Three, 
One God, we praise Thee. 

O Blessed Trinity ! 
Oh would that we could die of love for Thee, 
Incomparable Trinity ! 

Holy Trinity ! 
Blessed Equal Three. 
One God, we praise Thee. 



MAJESTY DIVINE. 

Full of glory, full of wonders, 

Majesty Divine ! 
Mid Thine everlasting thunders 

How Thy lightnings shine ! 



r4 MAJESTY DIVINE. 

Shoreless Ocean ! who shall sound Thee ? 
Thine own eternity is round Thee, 
Majesty Divine ! 

Timeless, spaceless, single, lonely. 

Yet sublimely Three, 
Thou art grandly, always, only 

God in Unity ! 
Lone in grandeur, lone in glory, 
Who shall tell Thy wondrous story, 

Awful Trinity ? 

Speechlessly, without beginning. 

Sun that never rose ! 
Vast, adorable, and winning. 

Day that hath no close ! 
Bliss from Thine own glory tasting, 
Everliving, evei'lasting, 

Life that never grows [ 

Thine own Self for ever filling 

With self-kindled flame. 
In Thyself Thou art distilling 

Unctions without name ! 
Without worshipping of creatures. 
Without veiling of Thy features, 

God always the same ! 



MAJESTY DIVINE. 

In Thy praise of. Self untiring 

Thy perfections shine ; 
Self-sufficient, self-admiring, — 

Such life must be Thine ; — 
Glorifying Self, yet blameless 
With a sanctity all shameless 

It is so divine ! 

'Mid Thine uncreated morning, 

Like a trembling star 
I behold creation's dawning 

Glimmering from afar ; 
Nothing giving, nothing taking, 
Nothing changing, nothing breaking, 

Waiting at time's bar ! 

I with life and love diurnal 

See myself in Thee, 
All embalmed in love eternal, 

Floating in Thy sea : 
'Mid Thine uncreated whiteness 
I behold Thy glory's brightness 

Feed itself on me. 

Splendours upon splendours beaming 

Change and intertwine ; 
Glories over glories streaming 

All translucent shine ! 
Blessings, praises adorations 
Greet Thee from the trembling nations J 

Majesty Divine ! 



i6 



GOD. 



Have mercy on us, God Most High ! 

Who hft our hearts to Thee ; 
Have mercy on us worms of earth, 

Most holy Trinity ! 

Most ancient of all mysteries ! 

Before Thy throne we lie ; 
Have mercy now most merciful. 

Most holy Trinity ! 

When heaven and earth were yet unmade, 
When time was yet unknown, 

Thou in Thy bliss and majesty 
Didst live and love alone ! 

Thou wert not born ; there was no fount 
From which Thy Being flowed ; 

There is no end which Thou canst reach : 
But Thou art simply God. 

How wonderful creation is. 

The work that Thou didst bless, 

And, oh ! what then must Thou be like, 
Eternal Loveliness ? 

How beautiful the Angels are, 
The Saints how bright in bliss ; 

But with Thy beauty, Lord ! compared, 
How dull, how poor is this ! 



THE ETERNITY OP GOD. 



17 



No wonder Saints have died of love, 

No wonder hearts can break, 
Pure liearts that once liave learned to love 

God for His own dear sake. 

O listen, then. Most Pitiful ! 

To Thy poor creature's heart ; 
It blesses Thee that Thou art God, 

That Thou art what Thou art ! 

Most ancient of all mysteries ! 

Still at Thy throne we he ; 
Have mercy now, most merciful, 

Most holy Trinity ! 



THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 



O Lord ! my heart is sick. 
Sick of this everlasting change ; 

And life runs tediously quick 
Through its unresting race and varied 
range : 
Change finds no likeness to itself in Thee, 
And wakes no echo in Thy mute Eternity. 
2 



16 THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 

Dear Lord ! my heart is sick 
Of this perpetual lapsing time, 

So slow in grief, in joy so quick. 
Yet ever casting shadows so sublime : 
Time of all creatures is least like to Thee, 
And yet it is our share of Thine eternity. 

O change and time are storms 
For lives so thin and frail as ours ; 

For change the work of grace deforms 
With love that soils, and help that over- 
powers ; 
And time is strong, and, like some chafing 
sea. 
It seems to fret the shores of Thine eternity. 

Weak, weak, forever weak ! 
We cannot hold what we possess ; 

Youth cannot find, age will not seek, 
O weakness is the heart's worst weari- 
ness : 
But weakest hearts can lift their thoughts to 
Thee ; 
It makes us strong to think of Thine etefaity. 

Thou.hadst no youth, great God, 
An Unbeginning End Thou art ; 

Thy glory in itself abode. 
And still abides in its own tranquil heart : 



THE ETERNrry OF GOD. 1 9 

No age can heap its outward years on Thee : 
Dear God ! Thou art Thyself Thine own 
eternity ! 

Without an end or bound 
Thy hfe lies all outspread in light ; 

Our lives feel Thy life all around, 
Making our weakness strong, our dark- 
ness bright ; 
Yet is it neither wilderness nor sea. 
But the calm gladness of a full eternity. 

Oh Thou art very great 
To set Thyself so far above ! 

But we partake of Thine estate, 
Established in Thy strength and in Thy 
love : 
That love hath made eternal room for me 
In the sweet vastness of its own eternity. 



Oh Thou art very meek 
To overshade Thy creatures thus ! 

Thy grandeur is the shade we seek ; 
To be eternal is Thy use to us : 
Ah Blessed God ! what joy it is to me 
To lose all thought of self in Thine eternity. 



20 THE GREATNESS OF GOD. 

Self-wearied, Lord ! I come ; 
For I have lived my life too fast : 

Now that years bring me nearer home 
Grace must be slowly used to make it 
last ; 
When my heart beats too quick I think of 
Thee, 
And of the leisure of Thy long eternity. 

Farewell, vain joys of earth ! 
Farewell, all love that is not His ! 

Dear God ! be Thou my only mirth. 
Thy majesty my single timid bliss! 
Oh in the bosom of eternity 
Thou does not weary of Thyself, nor we of 
Thee ! 



THE GREATNESS OF GOD. 

O Majesty unspeakable and dread ! 

Wert Thou less mighty than Thou art, 
Thou wert, O Lord ! too great for our belief, 

Too little for our heart. 

Thy greatness would seem monstrous by the 
side 

Of creatures frail and undivine ; 
Yet they would have a greatness of their own 

Free and apart from Thine. 



THE GREATNESS OF GOD. 2 

Such grandeur were but a created thing, 

A spectre, terror, and a grief, 
Out of all keeping with a world so calm. 

Oppressing our belief. 

But greatness, which is infinite makes room 

For all things in its lap to he ; 
We should be crushed by a magnificence 

Short of infinity. 

It would outgrow us from the face of things, 

Still prospering as we decayed. 
And, like a tyrannous rival, it would feed 

Upon the wrecks it made. 

But what is infinite must be a home, 

A shelter for the meanest life. 
Where it is free to reach its greatest growth 

Far from the touch of strife. 

We share in what is infinite : 'tis ours. 

For we and it ahke are Thine ; 
What I enjoy, great God ! by right of Thee 

Is more than doubly mine. 

Thus doth Thy hospitable greatness lie 
Outside us like a boundless sea; 

We cannot lose ourselves where ah is home. 
Nor drift away from Thee. 



22 THE WILL OF GOD. 

Out on that sea we are in harbour still. 
And scarce advert to winds and tides, 

Like ships that ride at anchor, with the waves 
Flapping against their sides. 

Thus doth Thy grandeur make us grand our- 
selves ; 

'Tis goodness bids us fear ; 
Thy greatness makes us brave as children are, 

When those they love are near. 

Great God ! our lowliness takes heart to play 
Beneath the shadow of Thy state ; 

The only comfort of our littleness 
Is that Thou art so great. 

Then on Thy grandeur I will lay me down ; 

Already life is heaven for me ; 
No cradled child more softly hes than I, — 

Come soon, Eternity ! 



THE WILL OF GOD. 

I worship thee, sweet Will of God ! 

And all thy ways adore. 
And every day I live I seem 

To love thee more and more. 



THE iriLL OF GOD. 23 

Thou wert the end, the blessed rule 
Of our Saviour's toils and tears ; 

Thou wert the passion of His Heart 
Those Three-and-thirty years. 

And He hath breathed into my soul 

A special love of thee, 
A love to lose my will in His, 

And by that loss be free. 

I love to see thee bring to nought 

The plans of wily men ; 
When simple hearts outwit the wise, 

Oh thou art loveHest then ! 

The headstrong world, it presses hard 

Upon the Church full oft, 
And then how- easily thou turnst 

The hard ways into soft. 

I love to kiss each print where thou 

Hast set thine unseen feet : 
I cannot fear thee, blessed Will ! 

Thine empire is so sweet. 

When obstacles and trials seem 

Like prison-walls to be, 
I do the little I can do. 

And leave the rest to thee. 



24 THE WILL OF GOD. 

I know not what it is to doubt ; 

My heart is ever gay ; 
I run no risk, for come what will 

Thou always hast thy way. 

I have no cares, O blessed Will ! 

For all my cares are thine ; 
I live in triumph, Lord ! for Thou 

Hast made Thy triumphs mine. 

And when it seems no chance or change 

From grief can set me free, 
Hope finds its strength in helplessness, 

And gaily waits on thee. 

Man's weakness waiting upon God 

Its end can never miss. 
For men on earth no work can do 

More angel-like than this. 

Ride on, ride on triumphantly. 
Thou glorious Will ! ride on ; 

Faith's pilgrim sons behind thee take 
The road that thou hast gone. 

He always wins who sides with God, 

To him no chance is lost ; 
God's will is sweetest to him when 

It triumphs at his cost. 



THE ETERNAL FATHER. 25 

111 that He blesses is our good, 

And unblest good is ill ; 
And all is right that seems most wrong, 

If it be His sweet Will! 



THE ETERNAL FATHER. 

Father ! the sweetest, dearest Name. 

That men or angels know ! 
Fountain of life, that had no fount 

From which itself could flow ! 

Thy life is one unwearing day ; 

Before its Now Thou hast 
No varied future yet unlived, 

No lapse of changeless past. 

Thou comest not. Thou goest not ; 

Thou wert not, wilt not be ; 
Eternity is but a thought 

By which we think of Thee. 

No epochs lie behind Thy life ; 

Thou holdst Thy life of none : 
No other life is by Thy side ; 

Thine is supremely lone. 



26 THE ETERNAL FATHER. 

Far upward in the timeless past, 
Ere form or space had come, 

We see Thee by Thine own dread light, 
Thyself Thine only home. 

Thy vastness is not young or old ; 

Thy life hath never grown ; 
No time can measure out Thy days. 

No space can make Thy throne. 

Thy life is deep within Thyself, 

Sole Unbegotten Sire ! 
But Son and Spirit flow from Thee 

In cc-°ternal fire. 

They flow from Thee, They rest in Thee, 

As in a Father's Breast, — 
Processions of eternal love. 

Pulses of endless rest ! 

• 
That They in majesty should reign 

Coequal, Sire ! with Thee, 

But magnifies the singleness 

Of Thy paternity. 

Their uncreated glories. Lord ! 

With Thine own glory shine ; 
Thy glory as the Father needs 

That Theirs should equal Thine. 



THi: ETERNAL FATHER. 27 

All thing- 5 are equal in Thy life: 

Thou joyst to be alone, 
To have no sire, and yet to have 

P\ coeternal Son. 

Thy Spirit is Thy jubilee ; 

Thy Word is Thy delight ; 
Thou givest Them to equal Thee 

In glory and in might. 

Thou art too great to keep unshared 

Thy grand eternity ; 
They have it as Thy gift to Them, 

Which is no gift to Thee. 

We too, like Thy coequal Word, 

Within Thy lap may rest : 
We too, like Thine Eternal Dove, 

May nestle in Thy Breast. 

Lone Fountain of the Godhead ! hail ! 

Person most dread and dear ! 
I thrill v/ith frightened joy to feel 

Thy fatherhood so near. 

Lost in Thy greatness, Lord ! I live. 

As in some gorgeous maze ; 
Thy sea of unbegotten light 

Blinds me, and yet I gaze. 



28 OUR HEAVENLY FATHER. 

For Thy grandeur is all tenderness, 

Air motherlike and meek; 
The hearts that will not come to it 

HumbHng itself to seek. 

Thou feign'st to be remote, and speakst 

As if from far above, 
That fear may make more bold with Thee, 

And be beguiled to love. 

On earth Thou hidest, not to scare 
The children with Thy light, 

Then showest us Thy Face in heaven, 
When we can bear the sight. 

All fathers learn their craft from Thee ; 

All loves are shadows cast 
From the beautiful eternal hills 

Of Thine unbeginning past. 



OUR HEAVENLY FATHER 

My God ! how wonderful Thou art, 

Thy Majesty how bright, 
How beautiful Thy Mercy-Seat 

In depths of burning light ! 



OUR HEAVENLY FATHER. 

How dread are Thine eternal years, 

O everlasting Lord ! 
By prostrate spirits day and night 

Incessantly adored ! 

How beautiful, how beautiful 

The sight of Thee must be, 
Thine endless wisdom, boundless power, 

And awful purity ! 

Oh how I fear Thee, living God ! 

With deepest, tenderest fears, 
And worship Thee with trembling hope. 

And penitential tears. 

Yet I may love Thee too, O Lord ! 

Almighty as Thou art. 
For Thou hast stooped to ask of me 

The love of my poor heart. 

Oh then this worse than worthless heart 

In pity deign to take. 
And make it love Thee, for Thyself 

And for Thy glory's sake. 

No earthly father loves like Thee, 

No mother half so mild 
Bears and forbears, as Thou hast done, 

With me Thy sinful child. 



30 



My FATHER. 



Only to sit and think of God, 

Oh what a joy it is ! 
To think the thought, to breathe the Name 

Earth has no higher bliss ! 

Father of Jesus, love's Reward ! 

What rapture will it be, 
Prostrate before Thy Throne to lie, 

And gaze and gaze on Thee ! 



MY FATHER. 



O God ! Thy power is wonderful, 
Thy glory passing bright ; 

Thy wisdom, with its deep on deep, 
A rapture to the sight. 

Thy justice is the gladdest thing 

Creation can behold ; 
Thy tenderness so meek, it wins 

The guilty to be bold. 

Yet more than all, and ever more, 
Should we Thy creatures bless, 

Most worshipful of attributes, 
Thine awful holiness. 



MY FATHER. 

There's not a craving in the mind 
Thou dost not meet and still ; 

There's not a wish the heart can have 
Which thou dost not fulfil. 

I see Thee in the eternal years 

In glory all alone, 
Ere round Thine uncreated fires 

Created light had shone. 

I see Thee walk in Eden's shade, 
I see Thee all through time ; 

Thy patience and compassion seem 
New attributes sublime. 



3' 



I see Thee when the doom is o'er, 

And outworn time is done. 
Still, still incomprehensible, 

O God ! yet not alone. 

Angelic spirits, countless souls. 

Of Thee have drunk their fill ; 
And to eternity will drink 

Thy joy and glory still. 

From Thee were drawn those worlds of life. 

The Saviour's Heart and Soul ; 
And undiminished still. Thy waves 

Of calmest glory roll. 



32 



THE GOD OF MY CHILDHOOD. 



All tilings that have been, all that are, 
AU things that can be dreamed, 

All possible creations, made, 
Kept faithful, or redeemed, — 

All these may draw upon Thy power. 
Thy mercy may command ; 

And still outflows Thy silent sea, 
Immutable and grand. 

O little heart of mine ! shall pain 
Or sorrow make thee moan. 

When aU this God is all for Thee, 
A Father all thine own ? 



THE GOD OF MY CHILDHOOD. 

God ! who wert my childhood's love, 

My boyhood's pure dehght, 
A presence felt the livelong day, 

A welcome fear at night, — 



Oh let me speak to Thee, dear God ! 

Of those old mercies past, 
O'er which new mercies day by day 

Such lengthening shadows cast. 



THE GOD OF MY CHILDHOOD. 33 

Tliey bade me call Thee Father, Lord ! 

Sweet was the freedom deemed, 
And yet niure like a mother's ways 

Thy quiet mercies seemed. 

At school Thou wert a kindly Face 

Which I could almost see ; 
But home and holyday appeared 

Somehow more full of Thee. 

I could not sleep unless Thy Haad 

Were underneath my head, 
That I might kiss it, if I lay 

Wakeful upon my bed. 

And quite alone I never felt, — 

I knew that Thou wert near, 
A silence tingling in the room, 

A strangely pleasant fear. 

And to home-Sundays long since past 

How fondly memory clings ; 
For then my mother told of Thee 

Such sweet, such wondrous tMngs. 

I know not what I thought of Thee, 

What picture I had made 
Of that eternal Majesty 

To whom my childhood prayed. 
3 



34 



THE GOD OF MY CHILDHOOD. 



I know I used to lie awake, 

And tremble at the shape 
Of my own thoughts, yet did not wish 

Thy terrors to escape. 

I had no secrets as a child. 

Yet never spoke of Thee ; 
The nights we spent together, Lord ! 

Were only known to me. 

I lived two lives, which seemed distinct. 

Yet which did intertwine : 
One was my mother's — it is gone — 

The other, Lord ! was Thine. 

I never wandered from Thee, Lord ! 

But sinned before Thy Face ; 
Yet now, on looking back, my sins 

Seem all beset with grace. 

With age Thou grewest more divine, 

More glorious than before ; 
I feared Thee with a deeper fear. 

Because I loved Thee more. 



Thou broadenest out with every year, 
Each breadth of life to meet : 

I scarce can think Thou art the same, 
Thou art so much more sw^et. 



THE ETERNAL WORD. 



35 



Changed and not changed, Thy present charms 

Thy past ones onJy prove ; 
Oh make my heart more strong to bear 

This newness of Thy love ! 

These novelties of love ! — when will 

Thy goodness find an end ? 
Whither will Thy compassions, Lord ! 

Incredibly extend ? 

Father ! what hast Thou grown to now ? 

A joy all joys above, 
Something more sacred than a fear, 

More tender than a love ! 

With gentle swiftness lead me on. 

Dear God ! to see Thy Face ; 
And meanwhile in my narrow heart 

Oh make Thyself more space ! 



THE ETERNAL WORD. 



Amid the eternal silences 

God's endless Word was spoken ; 
None heard but He who always spake, 

And the silence was unbroken. 



36 



2'HE ETERNAL JVORD. 



Chorus. 
Oh marvellous ! Oh worshipful ! 

No song or sound is heard, 
But everywhere and every hour, 
In love, in wisdom, and in power, 
The Father speaks His dear Eternal Word ! 

For ever in the eternal land 
The glorious day is dawning ; 

For ever is the Father's Light 

Like an endless outspread morning. 

From the Father's vast tranquillity, 

In hght coequal glowing 
The kingly consubstantial Word 

Is unutterably flowing. 

For ever climbs that Morning Star 

Without ascent or motion ; 
For ever is its daybreak shed 

On the Spirit's boundless ocean. 

O Word ! who fitly can adore 

Thy Birth and Thy Relation, 
Lost in the impenetrable light 

Of Thine awful Generation ? 

Thy Father clasps Thee evermore 

In unspeakable embraces, 
While angels tremble as they praise, 

And shroud their dazzled faces. 



THE ETERNAL WORT). 37 

And oh ! in what abyss of love, 

So fiery yet so tender, 
The Holy Ghost encircles Thee 

With His uncreated splendour ! 

O Word ! O dear and gentle Word ! 

Thy creatures kneel before Thee, 
And in extacies of timid love 

Delightedly adore Thee. 

Hail choicest mystery of God ! 

Hail wondrous Generation ! 
The Father's self-sufficient rest ! 

The Spirit's jubilation ! 

Dear Person ! dear beyond all words, 

Glorious beyond all telling ! 
Oh with what songs of silent love 

Our ravished hearts are sweUing ! 

Chorus. • 

O ! marvellous ! O worshipful ! 

No song or sound is heard, 

But everywhere and every hour, 

In love, in wisdom, and in power. 

The Father speaks His dear Eternal Word ! 



38 y£SUS IS GOD. 



JESUS IS GOD. 

Jesus is God ! The solid earth, 

The ocean broad and bright, 
The countless stars, like golden dust, 

That strew the skies at night, 
The wheeling storm, the dreadful fire, 

The pleasant wholesome air. 
The summer's sun, the winter's frost, 

His own creations were. 

Jesus is God ! The glorious bands 

Of golden angels sing 
Songs of adoring praise to Him, 

Their Maker and their King. 
He was true God in Bethlehem's crib. 

On Calvary's cross true God, 
He who in heaven eternal reigned. 

In time on earth abode. 

Jesus is God ! There never was 

A time when He was not : 
Boundless, eternal, merciful, 

The Word the Sire begot ! 
Backward our thoughts through ages stretch, 

Onward through endless bliss,^ 
For there are two eternities, 

And both alike are His ! 



1 



y£SUS IS GOD. 39 



Jesus is God ! Alas ! they say 

On earth the numbers grow. 
Who His Divinity blaspheme 

To their unfailing woe. 
And yet what is the single end 

Of this life's mortal span, 
Except to glorify the God 

Who for our sakes was man ? 



Jesus is God ! Let sorrow come, 

And pain, and every ill; 
All are worth while, for all are means 

His glory to fulfil ; 
Worth while a thousand years of life 

To speak one little word. 
If by our Credo we might own 

The Godhead of our Lord ! 



Jesus is God ! Oh could I now 

But compass land and sea. 
To teach and tell this single truth. 

How happy should I be ! 
O had I but an angel's voice 

I would proclaim so loud,— 
Jesus, the good, the beautiful, 

Is everlasting God. 



4.0 



yESUS MY GOD AND MY ALL. 



Jesus is God ! If pn the earth 
This blessed faith decays, 

More tender must our love become, 
More plentiful our praise. 

We are not angels, but we may- 
Down in earth's corners kneel. 

And mulitiply sweet acts of love, 
And murmur what we feel. 



JESUS MY GOD AND MY ALL. 

Jesus, Jesus ! dearest Lord ! 
Forgive me if I say 

For very love Thy Sacred Name 
A thousand times a day. 

1 love Thee so, I know not how 
My transports to control ; 

Thy love is like a burning fire 
Within my very soul. 



Oh wonderful ! that Thou shquldst let 

So vile a heart as mine 
Love Thee with such a love as this, 

And make so free with Thine. 



yESUS MV GOD AND MY ALL. 4 1 

The craft of this wise world of ours 

Poor wisdom seems to me ; 
Ah ! dearest Jesus ! I have grown 

Childish with love of Thee ! 

For Thou to me art all in all, 

My honour and my wealth. 
My heart's desire, my body's strengtli, 

My souls eternal health. 

Burn, burn, O Love ! within my heart, 

Burn fiercely night and day, 
Till all the dross of earthly loves 

Is burned, and burned away. 

O Light in darkness, Joy in grief, 

O Heaven begun on earth ! 
Jesus my Love ! my Treasure ! who 

Can tell what Thou art worth .? 

O Jesus ! Jesus ! sweetest Lord ! 

What art thou not to me ? 
Each hour brings joy before unknown, 

Each day new liberty ! 

What limit is there to thee, love ? 

Thy flight where wilt thou stay ? 
On ! on ! our Lord is sweeter far 

To-day than yesterday. 



(^2 THE ETERNAL SPIRIT. 

O love of Jesus ! Blessed love ! 

So will it ever be ; 
rime cannot hold thy wondrous growth, 

No, nor eternity ! 



THE ETERNAL SPIRIT. 

Fountain of Love ! Thyself true God ! 

Who through eternal days 
From Father and from Son hast flowed 

In uncreated ways ! 

O Majesty unspeakable ! 

O Person all divine ! 
How in the Threefold Majesty 

Doth Thy Procession shine ! 

Fixed in the Godhead's awful light 
Thy fiery Breath doth move ; 

Thou art a wonder by Thyself 
To worship and to love ! 

Proceeding, yet of equal age 

With those whose love Thou art ; 

Proceeding, yet distinct, from those 
From whom Thou seem'st to part : 



THE ETERNAL SPIRIT. 43 

An undivided Nature shared 

With Father and with Son ; 
A Person by Thyself ; with Them 

Thy simple essence One.; 

Bond art Thou of the other Twain ! 

Omnipotent and free ! 
The consummating Love of God ! 

The Limit of the Three ! 

Thou limitest infinity, 

Thyself all infinite ; 
The Godhead lives, and loves, and rests, 

I n Thine eternal light. 

I dread Thee, Unbegotten Love ! 

True God ! sole Fount of Grace ! 
And now before Thy Blessed throne 

My sinful self abase. 

Ocean, wide-flowing Ocean, Thou, 

Of uncreated Love ; 
I tremble as within my soul 

I feel Thy waters move. 

Thou art a sea without a shore ; 

Awful, immense Thou art ; 
A sea which can contract itself 

Within my narrow heai't. 



44 THE ETERNAL SPIRIT. 

And yet Thou art a haven too 

Out on the shoreless sea, 
A harbor that can hold full well 

Shipwrecked Humanity, 

Thou art an unborn Breath outbreathed 

On angels and on men, 
Subduing all things to Thyself, 

We know not how or when. 

Thou art a God of fire, that doth 
Create while He consumes ! 

A God of light, whose rays on earth 
Darken where He illumes ! 

All things ! dread Spirit ! to Thy praise 
Thy Presence doth transmute ; 

Evil itself Thy glory bears, 
Its one abiding fruit ! 

O Light ! O Love ! O very God 

I dare no longer gaze 
Upon Thy wondrous attributes. 

And their mysterious ways. 

O Spirit, beautiful and dread ! 

My heart is fit to break 
With love of all Thy tenderness 

For us poor sinners' sake. 



VENI CREA TOR. 



45 



Thy love of Jesus I adore ; 

My comfort this shall be, 
That, when I serve my dearest Lord, 

That service worships Thee ! 



VENI CREATOR. 

O come, Creator Spirit ! come. 
Vouchsafe to make our minds Thy home 
And with Thy heavenly grace fulfill 
The hearts Thou madest at Thy will. 

Thou that art named the Paraclete, 
The gift of God, His Spirit sweet ; 
The Living Fountain, Fire and Love, 
..\nd gracious Unction from above. 

Thy sevenfold grace Thou dost expand, 
O Finger of the Father's Hand ; 
True Promise of the Father, rich 
In gifts of tongue and varioils speech. 



Kindle our senses with Thy light. 
And lead our hearts to love aright : 
Stablish our weakness, and refresh 
With fortitude our faintins: flesh. 



46 VENI SANCTE SPIRIT US. 

Repel far off our deadly foe, 
And peace on us forthwith bestow ; 
With Thee, for Guide we need not fear, 
Where Thou art, evil comes not near. 

By Thee the Father let us bless, 
By Thee the Eternal Son confess 
And Thee Thyself we evermore. 
The Spirit of Them Both, adore. 

To God the Father let us raise, 
And to his only Son, our praise : 
Praise to the Holy Spirit be 
Now and for all eternity. 



VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS. 

Come, Holy Spirit ! from the height 
Of heaven send down Thy blessed light ! 

Come, Father of the friendless poor! 
Giver of gifts, and Light of hearts. 
Come with that unction which imparts 

Such consolations as endure. 



5 

J 



HOLY GHOST, COME DOWN, ETC. 47 

The Soul's Refreshment and her Guest, 
Shelter in heat, in labour Rest, 

The sweetest Solace in our woe ! 
Come, blissful Light ! oh come and fill, 
In all Thy faithful, heart and will, 

And make our inward fervour glow. 

Where Thou art. Lord ! there is no ill, 
For evil's self Thy light can kill : 

Oh let that light upon us rise ! 
Lord ! heal our wounds, and cleanse our 

stains, 
Fountain of grace ! and with Thy rains 

Our barren spirits fertilize. 

Bend with Thy fires our stubborn will. 
And quicken what the world would chill. 

And homeward call the feet that stray : 
Virtue's reward, and final grace. 
The Eternal Vision, face to face, 

Spirit of Love ! for these we pray. 



HOLY GHOST, COME DOWN UPON 
THY CHILDREN. 

Holy Ghost ! come down upon Thy children, 
Give us grace, and make us Thine ; 

Thy tender fires within us kindle. 
Blessed Spirit ! Dove Divine ! 



48 HOLY GHOST, COME DOWN, ETC. 

For all within us good and holy 

Is from Thee, Thy precious gift; 
In all our joys, in all our sorrows, 
Whistful hearts to Thee we lift. 
Holy Ghost ! come down upon Thy chil- 
dren, 
Give us grace, and make us Thine ; 
Thy tender fires within us kindle, 
Blessed Spirit ! Dove Divine ! 

For Thou to us art more than father, 

More than sister, in Thy love, 
So gentle, patient, and forbearing 
Holy Spirit ! heavenly Dove ! 
Holy Ghost! come down upon Thy chil- 
dren, 
Give us grace, and make us Thine ; 
Thy tender fires within us kindle, 
Blessed Spirit ! Dove Divine ! 

Oh we have grieved Thee, gracious Spirit ! 

Wayward, wanton, cold are we ; 
And still our sins, new every morning. 
Never yet have wearied Thee. 
Holy Ghost ! come down upon Thy chi! 
dren. 
Give us grace, and make us Thine ; 
Thy tender fires within us kindle 
Blessed Spirit ! Dove Divine ! 



HOLY GHOST, COME DOWN, ETC. 49 

Dear Paraclete ! how hast Thou waited, 
While our hearts were slowly turned ! 
How often hath Thy love been slighted, 
While for us it grieved and burned ! 
Holy Ghost ! come down upon Thy chil- 
dren. 
Give us grace, and make us Thine : 
Thy tender fires within us kindle, 
Blessed Spirit ! Dove Divine ! 

Now, if our hearts do not deceive us. 
We would take Thee for our Lord ! 
O dearest Spirit ! make us faithful 
To Thy least and lightest word. 
Holy Ghost ! come down upon Thy chil- 
dren, 
Give us grace, and make us Thine ; 
Thy tender fires within us kindle, 
Blessed Spirit ! Dove Divine ! 

Ah ! sweet Consoler ! though we cannot 

Love Thee as Thou lovest us, 
Yet, if Thou deign'st our hearts to kindle, 
They will not be always thus. 
Holy Ghost ! come down upon Tliy chil- 
dren. 
Give us grace, and make us Thine ; 
Thy tender fires within us kindle, 
Blessed Spirit ! Dove Divine ! 
4 



50 HOLY GHOST, COME DOWN, ETC. 

With liearts so vile how dare we venture, 

Holy Ghost ! to love Thee so ? 
And how canst Thou, with such compassion, 
Bear so long with things so low ? 
Holy Ghost ! come down upon Thy chii 
dren, 
Give u£ grace, and make us Thine ; 
Thy tender fires within us kindle. 
Blessed Spirit ! Dove Divine ! 





PAET SECOND. 
®l)e 0acrc5 l^umanita of 3e5U5. 

THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 



PARAPHRASED FROM THE PARADISUS ANIM^E 

Father ! Creator ! Lord Most High ! 
Sweet Jesus ! Fount of Clemency ! 
Blest Spirit ! who dost sanctify ! 

God ruling over all ! 
The Dolours Christ did once endure, 
Oh grant that I, with spirit pure, 

Devoutly may recall. 



52 THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 

Jesus ! Thou didst a Mother choose, 

Whose Seed the serpent's head should bruise, 

Seed of a Virgin Womb ; 
Oh bruise that serpent now in me, 
Bruise him, good Lord ! that I may be 

Thine at the Day of Doom. 

Jesus ! the saint in spirit soar, 
Where angels hymn for evermore 

The Judge who shall appear ; 
Receive a suppliant that would raise 
His voice unto that choir of praise, 

But is half mute through fear. 

I. THE INFANCY AND YOUTH OF OUR SAVIOUR 
TILL HIS BAPTISM. 

Jesus I who from Thy Throne didst come. 
And man's most vile estate assume. 

Our fallen race to lift, 
Oh grant that such transcending love 
To me through Thine own grace, may prove 

No ineffectual gift. 

Jesus ! whom Mary once conceived 
Through grace, her backward fears relieved 

By angel's salutation. 
May I, within a chastened heart. 
Conceive Thee, Living Word, who art 

My God and my Salvation. 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 53 

Jesus ! whom Thy sweet Mother bore 
To Saint EHzabeth of yore, 

On Jewry's mountain lea ; 
Oh mayst Thou oft, in ways concealed, 
To heart but not to eye revealed, 

Vouchsafe to visit me. 

Jesus ! kind visitant of earth, 
Of sinless and of painless birth, 

Thy Mother's only-born, 
May love with undiverted flame . 
Ascend, and for Thy glorious Name 

All other nuptials scorn. 

Jesus ! the spacious world was Thine, 
Yet, when Thou wouldst Thy head recline. 

It scarce found room for Thee ; 
And oh ! shall sinful man be bent 
On self-sought greatness, not content 

With Christ-like poverty ? 

Jesus ! for whom the Shepherds sought 
As Infant, by the angels taught 

From out the midnight sky. 
Oh may I love Thy praise on earth, 
That I may one day share the mirth 

Of angel hosts on high. 



54 THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 

Jesus ! my God and Saviour, Thou, 
Sinless, didst as a sinner bow 

To ordinance divine : 
Oh curb my loose and wandering eyes, 
Prune my self-will, and circumcise 

This carnal heart of mine. 

Jesus ! before Thy manger, kings 
Lay prostrate with their offerings, 

A most unworldly throne ; 
Thou to my cradle camest, Lord, 
With gifts invisibly outpoured 

From waters of Thine own. 

Jesus ! whom Thy meek Mother vowed 
To God, whose law would have allowed 

Her first-born to go free. 
Oh give me such a humble mind, 
That in obedience I may find 

The choicest liberty. 

Jesus ! sweet fugitive, who fled 
From Herod's bloody net outspread 

For Thy dear Infancy, 
Give me, O Lord, like modest care 
To fly the world when it speaks fair, 

To steal Thy grace away. 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 



55 



Jesus ! whom Thy sad Mother sought 
And in the temple found, who taught 

The aged in Thy youth : 
How blest are they who keep aright, 
Or find, when lost, the living light 

Of Thine eternal truth ! 

O Creator ! hear Thy creatures, 
Saviour ! hear us when we pray ; 
Thou who dost renew our natures, 
Good Spirit ! give us hearts to say, 
Deus meus et omnia ! 

2, the life of our saviour till his 

PASSION. 



Jesus ! the Father's words approve 
His Son in Jordan, while the Dove, 

Bright Witness, hovers down ; 
So wash me. Lord, that I may be. 
At the great day, approved of Thee, 

Before Thy Father's throne. 

Jesus ! who in the strength of fast. 
Through Adam's three temptations passv^d, 

On Adam's trial-ground, 
In me let hallowed abstinence 
The issues seal of carnal sense, 

And Satan's wiles confound. 



56 THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 

Jesus ! Thou didst the fishers call, 
Who straightway at Thy voice left all. 

To teach the world of Thee ; 
May I with ready will obey 
Thine inward call, and keep the way 

Of Thy simplicity. 



Jesus ! who deignedst to be a guest, 
Where Mary's gently-urged behest 

With Thy kind power made free. 
May I mine earthly kinsfolk love, 
In such pure ways, that I may prove 

My greater love for Thee. 

Jesus ! how toiled Thy blessed Feet 
O'er hill and dale and stony street. 

Through weary want and pain ! 
Oh may I rather for Thy sake 
The hardships Thou hast hallowed take 

Than joys Thou didst disdain. 

Jesus ! in all the zeal of love 
How amiably didst Thou reprove 

Poor wretches lost in sin ! 
Ah ! may I first in penance live, 
Rebuking self, then humbly strive 

My brother's soul to win. 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 

Jesus ! who didst the multitude 
Twice nourish with miraculous food 

Of soul and body both, 
Give me my daily bread, O Lord, 
Thy Flesh, Thyself, Incarnate Word ! 

Which feeds our heavenly growth. 

Jesus ! Thy gracious truth revealing. 
All sorrow soothing, sickness healing, 

And so requiting hate, 
Oh grant that I may ever be 
Like-minded, blessed Lord ! with Thee, 

And envy no man's state. 

Jesus ! transfigured on the height 
Of Tabor in mysterious light 

From heaven's eternal fountain, 
If such the earthly type, oh lead, 
Lead me where Thou Thy flock dost feed 

Upon the holy mountain. 



57 



Jesus ! who wept o'er Salem's towers, 
Wept for her long and baleful hours 

Of misery and sin ! 
O Love Divine, could I but borrow 
From Thy sweet strength such strength of 
sorrow 

As might her pardon win ! 



58 THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 

' Jesus ! and do I now behold 
My God, my Saviour, bought and sold, 

A traitor's merchandise ! 
Oh grant that I may never be 
A Judas, dearest Lord, to Thee, 

For all that earth can prize. 

O Creator ! hear Thy creatures, 
Saviour ! hear us, when we pray ; 
Thou who dost renew our natures, 
Good Spirit ! Give us heart to say, 
Deus meus et omnia ! 



3. THE PASSION OF OUR SAVIOUR TILL HIS 
CRUCIFIXION. 

Jesus ! who deem'dst it not unmeet 
To wash Thine own disciples' feet. 

Though Thou wert Lord of all ; 
Teach me thereby this wisdom meek, 
That they who self-abasement seek 

Alone shall fear no fall. 

Jesus ! who Thy true Flesh didst take 
Upon the Paschal night, and break 

For our most precious Food, 
O Living Bread, be Thou my strength 
Through which the world and flesh, at length, 

In me may be subdued. 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 59 

Jesus ! who in the garden felt 
The bloody sweat, yet patient knelt 

To do Thy Father's will, 
To me give such a zealous mind 
To suffer such a heart resigned 

Thy statutes to fulfil. 

Jesus ! Thy friends are fain to sleep, 
While to the unresisting Sheep 

The cruel wolves repair ; 
May I be found as meek and still 
By those who wish or work me ill, 

And, like my Lord, at prayer. 

Jesus ! who sawst on that sad night 
Thine own. Thy chosen, take to flighty 

And leave their Lord by stealth ; 
Oh may we learn in grief and care 
Those harder trials still to bear, 

Prosperity and wealth. 
Jesus ! who meekly silent stood 
Before the accusing multitude. 

Do Thou my tongue control. 
Set on my busy lips Thy seal ; 
Ascetic silence oft can heal 

The sickness of the soul. 

Jesus ! whom Peter then denied. 
Thou with one gentle look didst chide 
The weak disciple's fears ; 



6o THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 

If ever I deny Thy Name, 
Thy Cross, oh send me speedy shame, 
Oh give me Peter's tears. 

Jesus ! the Judge of quick and dead, 
Thyself, when falsely judged, wert led 

In mock regalia clad ; 
May I my solemn office fill, 
Judge of myself, and think no ill. 

Not even of the bad. 
Jesus ! when scourged and buffeted 
And spit upon. Thy sacred Head 

Was bow'd to earth for me ; 
Oh may I pardon find, and bliss. 
And expiating love in this 

My Lord's indignity. 

Jesus ! with crown of ruddy thorn 
The Jews Thy tortured brow adorn. 

And jeering, hail Thee king ; 
May I, O Lord, with heart sincere 
My humble zeal, my love, and fear. 

And real homage bring. 

Jesus ! for whom the wicked Jews 

A vile and blood-stained robber choose, 

Have mercy. Lord, on me, 
And keep me from a choice so base 
As taking wealth or ease or place, 

Barabbas, Lord ! for Thee. 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 6t 

O Creator ! hear Thy creatures, 
Saviour ! hear us when we pray ; 
Thou who dost renew our natures, 
Good Spirit ! give us hearts to say, 
Deus meus et omnia ! 

\. the crucifixiox, axd what was done 
upon the cross. 

Jesus ! along Thy proper road 
Of sorrows, with Thy weary Load 

How didst Thou toil and strain ! 
Oh may I bear the Cross lil-ce Thee, 
Or rather, Lord, do thou in me 

The blessed weight sustain. 

Jesus ! on that most doleful day 

How were thy garments stripped away, 

Thy holy Limbs laid bare ! 
Oh may no works or ways unclean 
Despoil me of that modest mien 

Thy servants, Lord, should wear. 

Jesus ! What direst agony 
Was thine upon the bitter tree, 

With healing virtues rife ! 
Oh may I count all things but loss, 
All for the glory of the Cross, 

The sinner's Tree of Life. 



62 THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 

Jesus ! around Tliy sacred Head 
There is an ominous brightness shed, 

The Name which Pilate wrote ; 
Save us, Thou royal Nazarene ! 
For in that Threefold Name are seen 

The gifts Thy Passion brought. 

Jesus ! wlio to the Father prayed 
For those who all Thy love repaid. 

With this dread cup of woes, 
Teach me to conquer, Lord, like Thee, 
By patience and benignity, 

The thwarting of my foes. 

Jesus ! who, come to seek and save, 
Absolved the thief, and promise gave 

Of peace among the blest, 
Ah ! do Thou give me penitence 
Like this, that I, when summoned hence. 

In paradise may rest. 

Jesus ! who bade the virgin John 

Thy Mother take, when Thou wert gone, 

And in Thy stead to be. 
Oh when I yield my parting breath. 
Be Thou beside me, and in death. 

Good Lord, remember me. 

Jesus ! true Man, who cried aloud. 
Toward the ninth hour. My God, my God, 
O why am I forsaken ? 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 63 

Lord ! may I never fall from Thee, 
Nor e'en in life's extremity 
My humble trust be shaken. 

Jesus ! athirst, the soldiers think 
To mock Thee, giving Thee to drink 

What might inflame Thy pain ; 
Ah ! mindful of the loathsome draught 
Which for my sins my Saviour quaffed, 

May I my flesh restrain. 

Jesus ! Redeemer, all the price 
Of Adam's sin Thy sacrifice 

Did more than fully pay ; 
May I my stewardship fulfil 
With equal strictness, and Thy will 

With scrupulous love obey. 

Jesus ! Thy passion at an end, 

Thou didst Thy blameless Soul commend 

Unto the Father's care ; 
When my last hour is come, may I 
Hasten with meek alacrity 

To do Thy will elsewhere. 

O Creator ! hear Thy creatures, 
Saviour ! hear us when we pray ; 
Thou who dost renew our natures, 
Good Spirit ! give us hearts to say, 
Deus meus et omnia ! 



64 THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 

5. WHAT WAS DOXE AFTER HIS DEATH, 
BURIAL, RESURRECTION, ASCENSION, SES- 
SION, AND SECOND ADVENT. 

Jesus ! all hail, who for my sin 
Didst die, and by that death didst win 

Eternal life for me ; 
Send me Thy grace, good Lord ! that 1 
Unto the world and flesh may die, 

And hide my life with Thee. 

Jesus ! from out Thine open Side 
Thou hast the thirsty world supplied 

With endless streams of love ; 
Come ye who would your sickness quell. 
Draw freely from that sacred well. 

Its heavenly virtues prove. 

Jesus ! Thy Passion's bitter smart 
Pierced like a sword Thy Mother's heart. 

As Simeon prophesied; 
So fix my heart unto Thy Cross, 
That I may count all gain but loss 

For Jesus Crucified ! 

Jesus ! in spices wrapped, and laid 
Within the garden's rocky shade. 
By jealous seals made sure, 



THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 65 

Embalm me with Thy grace, and hide 
Thy servant in Thy wounded Side, 

A heavenly sepulture ! 
Jesus ! who to the spirits went, 
And preached the new enfranchisement 

Thy recent death had won. 
Absolve me. Lord ! and set me free 
From self and sin, that I may be 

Bondsman to Thee alone. 

Jesus ! who from the dead arose. 

And straightway sought to comfort those 

Whose weak faith mourned for Thee, 
O may I rise from sin and earth, 
And so make good that second birth 

Which Thou hast wrought in me. 

Jesus ! who wert at Emmaus known 
In breaking bread, and thus art shown 

Unto Thy people now. 
Oh may my heart within me burn, 
When at the Altar I discern 

Thy Body, Lord ! and bow, 

Jesus ! amid yon olives hoar, 
Thy forty days of sojourn o'er, 

Thou didst ascend on high ; 
Oh thither may my heart and mind 
Ascend, tlieir home and harbour find 

With Jesus in the sky. 
5 



ITS 



66 THE LIFE OF OUR LORD. 

Jesus ! ten silent days expired, 
The Eternal Spirit came, and fired 

With His celestial heat 
Thine Infant Church ; Oh may that light 
Within one pasture now unite 

Men's widely wandering feet. 

Jesus ! who at this very hour 

At God's Right Hand in pomp and power 

Our nature still dost wear, 
Oh let Thy Wounds still intercede. 
And by their simple silence plead 

Thy countless merits there. 

Jesus ! who shalt in glory come 
With angels to the final doom, 

Men's works and wills to weigh, 
Since from that pomp I cannot flee. 
Be pitiful, great Lord ! to me 

In that tremendous day. 

O Creator ! hear Thy creatures. 
Saviour! hear us when we pray; 
Thou who dost renew our natures, 
Good Spirit ! give us hearts to say, 
Deus meus et omnia ! 



Rome. Villa Strozzi, 
Eve of St. Barnabas, 1843. 



CHRISTMAS NIGHT. 



67 



CHRISTMAS NIGHT. 

At last Thou art come, little Saviour ! 

And Thine angels fill midnight with song ; 
Thou art come to us, gentle Creator ! 
Whom Thy creatures have sighed for so 
long. 

Chorus. 
All hail, Eternal Child ! 
Sweet Babe of Bethlehem ! 
Hail God's Eternal Son, 
Sweet Babe of Bethlehem ! 

Thou art come to Thy beautiful Mother ; 

She hath looked on Thy marvellous Face ; 
Thou art come to us, Maker of Mary ! 

And she was Thy channel of grace. 

Thou hast brought with Thee plentiful pardon, 
And our souls overflow with delight ; 

Our hearts are half broken, dear Jesus ! 
With the joy of this wonderful night. 



We have waited so long for Thee, Saviour '. 

Art Thou come to us, dearest ! at last ? 
Oh bless Thee, dear Joy of Thy Mother ! 

This is worth all the wearisome past ! 



68 THE INFANT JESUS. 

Thou art come, Thou art come, Child of Mary ! 

Yet we hardly beheve Thou art come ; — 
It seems such a wonder to have Thee, 

New Brother ! with us in our home. 

Thou wilt stay with us. Master and Maker ! 

Thou wilt stay with us now evermore : 
We will play with Thee, beautiful Brother ! 

On Eternity's jubilant shore. 



THE INFANT JESUS. 

Dear Little One ! how sweet Thou art. 
Thine eyes how bright they shine. 

So bright they almost seem to speak 
When Mary's look meets Thine ! 

How faint and feeble is Thy cry, 

Like plaint of harmless dove. 
When Thou dost murmur in Thy sleep 

Of sorrow and of love. 

When Mary bids Thee sleep Thou sleepst, 

Thou wakest when she calls ; 
Thou art content upon her lap, 

Or in the rugfs:ed stalls. 



THE INFANT JESUS. 69 

Simplest of Babes ! with what a grace 

Thou dost Thy Mother's will ! 
Thine infant fashions well betray 

The Godhead's hidden skill. 

When Joseph takes Thee in his arms, 

And smooths Thy little cheek, 
Thou lookest up into his face 

So helpless and so meek. 

Yes ! Thou art what Thou seemst to be, 

A thing of smiles and tears ; 
Yet Thou art God, and heaven and earth 

Adore Thee with their feai's. 

Yes ! dearest Babe ! those tiny hands. 

That play with Mary's hair. 
The weight of all the mighty world 

This very moment bear. 

While Thou art clasping Mary's neck 

In timid tight embrace. 
The boldest Seraphs veil themselves 

Before Thine infant Face. 



When Mary hath appeased Thy thirst. 
And hushed Thy feeble cry. 

The hearts of men he open still 
Before Thy slumbering eye. 



70 THE THREE KINGS. 

Art Thou, weak Babe ! my very God ? 

Oh I must love Thee then, 
Love Thee, and yearn to spread Thy love 

Among forgetful men. 

O sweet, O wakeful-hearted Child ! 

Sleep on, dear Jesus ! sleep ; 
For Thou must one day wake for me 

To suffer and to weep. 

A Scourge, a Cross, a cruel Crown 

Have I in store for Thee ; 
Yet why ? one little tear, O Lord ! 

Ransom enough would be. 

But no ! death is Thine own sweet will, 

The price decreed above ; 
Thou wilt do more than save our souls, 

For Thou wilt die for love. 



THE THREE KINGS. 

Who are these that ride so fast o'er the desert's 
sandy road. 

That have tracked the Red Sea shore, and 
have swum the torrents broad ; 

Whose camels' bells are tinkling through the 
long and starry night — 

For they ride like men pursued, like the van- 
quished of a fight ? 



THE THREE KINGS. 7 I 

Who are these that ride so fast ? They are 
eastern monarchs three, 

Who have laid aside their crowns, and re- 
nounced their high degree ; 

The eyes they love, the hearts they prize, the 
well-known voices kind, 

Their people's tents, their native plains, they've 
left them all behind. 

The very least of faith's dim rays beamed on 

them from afar, 
And that same hour they rose from off their 

thrones to track the Star ; 
They cared not for the cruel scorn of those 

who called them mad ; 
Messias' Star was shining, and their royal 

hearts were glad. 

But a speck was in the midnight sky, uncer- 
tain, dim, and far, 

And their hearts were pure, and heard a voice 
proclaim Messias' Star : 

And in its golden twinkling they saw more 
than common light. 

The Mother and the Child they saw in Beth- 
lehem by night ! 

And what were crowns, and what were thrones, 
to such a sight as that ? 



72 THE THREE KINGS. 

So straight away they left their tents, and 

bade not grace to wait ; 
They hardly stop to slake their thirst at the 

desert's hmpid springs, 
Nor note how fair the landscape is, how sweet 

the skylark sings ! 

Whole cities have turned out to meet their 

royal cavalcade, 
Wise colleges and doctors all their wisdom 

have displayed ; 
And when the star was dim, they knocked at 

Herod's palace gate, 
And troubled with the news of faith his politic 

estate. 

And they have knelt m Bethlehem ! The 

Everlasting Child 
They saw upon His mother's lap, earth's 

monarch meek and mild ; 
His httle feet, with Mary's leave, they pressed 

with loving kiss, — 
Oh what were thrones, oh what were crowns, 

to such a joy as this ? 

One little sight of Jesus was enough for many 

years, 
One look at Him their stay and staff in the 

dismal vale of tears : 



THE purification: 73 

Their people for that sight of H:m they gal- 
lantly withstood, 

They taught His faith, they preached His 
word, and for Him shed their blood. 

Ah me ! what broad daylight of faith our 

thankless souls receive. 
How much we know of Jesus, and how easy 

to beheve ; 
Tis the noonday of His sunshine, of His sun 

that setteth never : 
Faith gives us crowns, and makes us kings, 

and our kingdom is for ever ! 

Oh glory be to God on high for these Arabian 

• kings. 
These miracles of royal faith, with eastern 

offerings : 
For Caspar and for Melchior and Balthazzar, 

who from far 
Found Mary out and Jesus by the shining of 

a Star ! 



THE PURIFICATION. 
Joy ! joy ! the mother comes, 
And in her arms she brings 
The Light of all the world, 



74 THE PURIFICATION. 

The Christ, the King of kings ; 
And in her heart the while 
All silently she sings. 

Saint Joseph follows near, 
In rapture lost and love, , 

While angels round about 
In glowing circles move. 

And o'er the Mother broods 
The Everlasting Dove ! 

There in the temple court 

Old Simeon's heart beats high, 

And Anna feeds her soul 
With food of prophecy ; 

But, see ! the shadows pass, 
The world's true Light draws nigh'. 

O Infant God ! O Christ ! 

O Light most beautiful ! 
Thou comest, Joy of Joys ! 

All darkness to annul ; 
And brightest lights of earth 

Beside Thy Light are dull. 
O Mary ! bear Him quick 

Into His temple gate, 
For poor impatient souls 

His healing sunrise wait : 
And pay His price that He 

May be emancipate. 



M'! I 



75 



Yes ! thou wilt set Him free ; 

He will be wholly ours, 
To lighten every soul 

In earth's benighted bowers, 
Undoing Adam's curse, 

And turning thorns to flowers. 

Ah ! with what thrills of awe 
The Mother's heart is teeming, 

To think the newborn light 
That o' er the world is streaming. 

At His own Mother's hands 

Should stoop to need redeeming. 



LENT. 

Now are the days of humblest prayer, 
When consciences to God He bare. 
And mercy most delights to spare. 
Oh hearken when we cry, 

Chastise us with Thy fear ; 

Yet, Father ! in the multitude 

Of Thy compassions, hear ! 

Now is the season, w^ely long. 
Of sadder thought and graver song, 
When ailing souls grow well and strong. 
Oh hearken when we cry 



76 



Chastise us with Thy fear ; 

Yet, Father ! in the multitude 

Of Thy compassions, hear ! 

O happy time of blessed tears. 
Of surer hopes, of chastening fears, 
Undoing all our evil years. 
Oh hearken when we cry, 

Chastise us with Thy fear ; 

Yet, Father ! in the multitude 

Of Thy compassions, hear ! 

We, who have loved the world must learn, 
Upon that world our backs to turn, 
And with the k)ve of God to burn. 
Oh hearken when we cry, 

Chastise us with Thy fear; 

Yet, Father ! in the multitude 

Of Thy compassions, hear ! 

Vile creatures of such little worth ! — 
Than we, there can be none on earth 
More fallen from their Christian birth. 
Oh hearken when we cry, 

Chastise us with Thy fear ; 

Yet, Father ! in the multitude 

Of Thy compassions, hear ! 

Full long in sin's dark ways we went. 
Yet now our steps are heavenward bent. 
And grace is plentiful in Lent. 



THE AGONY. ']'] 

Oh hearken when we cry, 
Chastise us with Thy fear; 

Yet, Father ! in the multitude 
Of Thy compassions, hear ! 

All glory to redeeming grace. 
Disdaining not our evil case, 
But showing us our Saviour's face ! 
Oh hearken when we cry, 

Chastise us with Thy fear ; 

Yet, Father ! in the multitude 

Of Thy compassions, hear ! 



THE AGONY. 

O Soul of Jesus, sick to death ! 
Thy blood and prayer together plead ; 
My sins have bowed Thee to the ground, 
As the storm bows the feeble reed. 

Midnight — and still the oppressive load 
Upon Thy tortured Heart doth he ; 
Still the abhorred procession winds 
Before Thy spirit's quailing eye. 

Deep waters have come in, O Lord ! 
All darkly on Thy Human Soul ; 
And clouds of supernatural gloom 
Around Thee are allowed to roll. 



I 



78 THE AGONY. 

The weight of the eternal wrath 
Drives over Thee with pressure dread ; 
And, forced upon the olive roots, 
In deathlike sadness droops Thy Head; 

Thy spirit weighs the sins of men ; 
I'hy science fathoms all their guilt ; 
Thou sickenest heavily at Thy Heart, 
And the pores open, — Blood is spilt. 

And Thou hast struggled with it, Lord ! 
Even to the limit of Thy strength, 
While hours, whose minutes were as years, 
Slowly fulfilled their weary length. 

And Thou hast shuddered at each act. 
And shrunk with an astonished fear. 
As if Thou couldst not bear to see 
The loathsomeness of sin so near. 

Sin and the Father's Anger ! they 
Have made Thy lower nature faint ; 
All save the love within Thy Heart, 
Seemed for the moment to be spent. 

My God ! My God ! and can it be 
That I should sin so lightly now, 
And think no more of evil thoughts, 
Than of the wind that waves the bough ? 



TffE AGONY. 79 It 

I sin, — and heaven and earth go round, 
As if no dreadful deed were done. 
As if God's Blood had never flowed 
To hinder sin, or to atone. 

I walk the earth with lightsome step, 
Smile at the sunshine, breathe the air, 
Do my own will, nor ever heed 
Gethsemane and Thy long prayer. 

Shall it be always thus, O Lord ? 
Wilt Thou not work this hour in me 
The grace Thy Passion merited. 
Hatred of self and love of Thee ? 

Oh by the pains of Thy pure love, 
Grant me the gift of holy fear ; 
And give me of Thy Bloody Sweat 
To wash my guilty conscience clear ! 

Ever when tempted, make me see, 
Beneath the olive's moon-pierced shade. 
My God, alone, outstretched, and bruised, 
And bleeding, on the earth He made. 

And make me feel it was my sin. 
As though no other sins there were, 
That was to Him who bears the world 
A load that He could scarcely bear ! 



i 



8o yESUS CRUCIFIED. 



JESUS CRUCIFIED. 
Oh come and mourn with me awhile ! 
See, Mary calls us to her side ; 
Oh come and l§t us mourn with her; 
Jesus, our Love, is crucified ! • 

Have we no tears to shed for Him, 
While soldiers scoff and Jews deride ? 
Ah ! look how patiently He hangs ; 
Jesus, our Love, is crucified ! 

How fast His Hands and Feet are nailed ; 
His blessed Tongue with thirst is tied ; 
His failing Eyes are blind with blood ; 
Jesus, our Love, is crucified ! 

Seven times He spoke, seven words of love, 
And all three hours His silence cried 
For mercy on the souls of men ; 
Jesus, our Love, is crucified ! 

What was Thy crime, my dearest Lord ? 
By earth, by heaven. Thou hast been tried. 
And guilty found of too much love ; 
Jesus, our Love, is crucified ! 

Found guilty of excess of love. 
It was Thine own sweet will that tied 
Thee tighter far than helpless nails ; 
Jesus, our Love, is crucified ! 



THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 8 1 

Oh break, oh break, hard heart of mine ! 
Thy weak self-love and guilty pride 
His Pilate and His Judas were ; 
Jesus, our Love, is crucified ! 

Come, take thy stand beneath the Cross. 
And let the Blood from out that Side 
Fall gently on thee drop by drop ; 
Jesus, our Love, is crucified! 

A broken heart, a fount of tears, 
Ask, and they will not be denied ; 
A broken heart, love's cradle is ; 
Jesus, our Love, is crucified ! 

O Love of God ! O Sin of man ! 
In this dread act your strength is tried. 
And victory remains with love ; 
For He, our Love, is crucified ! 



THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 

Hail, Jesus ! Hail ! who for my sake 
Sweet Blood from Mary's veins didst take, 

And shed it all for me ; 
Oh Blessed be my Saviour's Blood, 
My life, my light, my only good. 

To all eternity. 

6 



82 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 

To endless ages let us praise 

The Precious Blood, whose price could raise 

The world from wrath and sin ; 
Whose streams our inward thirst appease, 
And heal the sinner's worst disease, 

If he but bathe therein. 

Oh sweetest Blood, that can implore 
Pardon of God, and heaven restore, 

The heaven which sin had lost : 
While Abel's blood for vengeance pleads, 
What Jesus shed still intercedes 

For those who wrong Him most. 

Oh to be sprinkled from the wells 
Of Christ's own sacred Blood, excels 

Earth's best and highest bliss : 
The ministers of wrath divine 
Hurt not the happy hearts that shine 

With those red drops of His ! 

All ! there is joy amid the saints. 
And hell's despairing courage faints 

When this sweet song we raise : 
Oh louder then, and louder still. 
Earth with one mighty chorus fill. 

The Precious Blood to praise ! 



BLOOD IS THE PRICE OF HE A VEN. 8.^ 



BLOOD IS THE PRICE OF HEAVEN. 

Blood is the price of heaven ; 
All sin that price exceeds ; 
Oh come to be forgiven, — 
He bleeds, 
My Saviour bleeds ! 
Bleeds ! 

Under the olive boughs. 

Falling like ruby beads, 
The Blood drops from His Brows, 
He bleeds, 
My Saviour bleeds ! 
Bleeds ! 

While the fierce scourges fall. 

The Precious Blood still pleads : 
In front of Pilate's hall 
He bleeds. 
My Saviour bleeds ! 
Bleeds ! 

Beneath the thorny crown 

The crimson fountain speeds ; 
See how it trickles down, — 
He bleeds, 
My Saviour bleeds ! 
Bleeds ! 



84 BLOOD IS THE PRICE OF HEAVEN. 

Bearing the fatal wood 

His band of saints He leads, 
Marking the way with Blood ; 
He bleeds, 
My Saviour bleeds ! 
Bleeds ! 



On Calvary His shame 

With Blood still intercedes ; 
His open Wounds proclaim — 
He bleeds, 
My Saviour bleeds ! 
Bleeds ! 



He hangs upon the tree, 

Hangs there for my misdeeds ; 
He sheds His Blood for me ; 
He bleeds, 
My Saviour bleeds! 
Bleeds ! 

Ah me ! His Soul is fled ; 

Yet still for my great needs 
He bleeds when He is dead 

He bleeds. 
My Saviour bleeds . 

Bleeds ! 



If^E COME TO THEE SWEET SAVIOUR. 85 

His Blood is flowing still ; 

My thirsty soul it feeds ; 

He lets me drink my fill ; 

He bleeds, 

My Saviour bleeds ! 

Bleeds! 

O sweet ! O Precious Blood ! 

What love, what love it breeds 
Ransom, Reward, and Food, 
He bleeds, 
My Saviour bleeds ! 
Bleeds ! 



WE COME TO THEE SWEET 
SAVIOUR. 

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour; 

Just because we need Thee so : 
None need Thee more than we do ; 

Nor are half so vile or low. 

Chorus. 
O bountiful salvation ! 
O life eternal won ! 
O plentiful redemption ! 
O Blood of God's dear Son ! 



86 WE COME TO THEE SWEET SAVIOUR. 

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour ! 

None will have us, Lord ! but Thee : 
A.nd we want none but Jesus, 

And His grace that makes us free. 

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour ! 

For our sins are worse than ever ; 
Dear Shepherd of the outcast ! 

But Thy patience wearies never. 

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour !' 
With our broken faith again : 

We know Thou wilt forgive us, 
Nor upbraid us, nor complain. 

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour ! 

It is love that makes us come : 
We are certain of our welcome. 

Of our Father's welcome home. 

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour ! 

Fear brings us in our need ; 
For Thy hand never breaketh, 

Not the frailest bruised reed. 

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour ! 

For to whom, Lord ! can we go ? 
The words of life eternal 

From Thy lips for ever flow. 



y£SC/S RISEN. 

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour ! 

We have tried Thee, oft before ; 
But now we come more wholly, 

With the heart to love Thee more. 

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour ! 

'Tis in answer to Thy call, 
Dear Hope of the unworthy ! 

Dearest Merit of us all ! 

We come to Thee, sweet Saviour ! 

And Thou wilt not ask us why : 
We cannot live without Thee, 

And still less without Thee die. 

Chorus. 
O bountiful salvation ! 
O life eternal won ! 
O plentiful redemption ! 
O Blood of God's dear Son ! 



87 



JESUS RISEN. 

All hail ! dear Conqueror ! all hail ! 

Oh what a victory is Thine ! 
How beautiful Thy strength appears, 

Thy crimson Wounds, how bright they shine ! 



B5 THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 

Down, down, all lofty things on earth, 

And worship Him with joyous dread ! 
O Sin ! thou art outdone by love ! 

Death ! thou art discomfited ! 

Ye Heavens, how sang they in your courts, 
How sang the angelic choirs that day. 

When from his tomb the imprisoned God, 
Like the strong sunrise, broke away ? 

Oh I am burning so with love, 

1 fear lest I should make too free ; 
Let me be silent artd adore 

Thy glorified Humanity. 

Ah ! now Thou sendest me sweet tears ; 

Fluttered with love, my spirits fail, — 
What shall I say ? Thou knowest my heart 

All hail ! dear Conqueror ! all hail ! 



THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 

He comes ! He comes ! that mighty Breath 

From heaven's eternal shores ; 
His uncreated freshness fills 

His bride as she adores. 

Earth quakes before that rushing blast, 

Heaven echoes back the sound, 
And mightily the tempest wheels 

That -Upper Room around. 



THE DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST. 89 

One moment — and the silentness 

Was breathless as the grave ; 
The fluttered earth forgot to quake, 

The troubled trees to wave. 



One moment — and the Spirit hung 

O'er them with dread desire ; 
Then broke upon the heads of all 

In cloven tongues of fire. 

What gifts He gave those chosen men^ 

Past ages can display ; 
. Nay more, their vigour still inspires 
The weakness of to-day. 

Those tongues still speak within the Church, 

That Fire is undecayed ; 
Its well-spring was that Upper Room, 

Where the disciples met and prayed. 

The Spirit came into the Church 

With His unfailing power ; 
He is the Living Heart that beats 

Within her at this hour. 

Speak gently then of Church and Saints, 

Lest you His ways reprove ; 
The Heat, the Pulses of the Church 

Are God's Eternal Love. 



90 THE SACRED HEART. 

Oh let US fall and worship Him, 
The Love of Sire and Son, 

The Consubstantial Breath of God, 
The Coeternal One ! 



Ah ! see, how like the Incarnate Word, 
His Blessed Self He lowers, 

To dwell with us invisibly. 
And make His riches ours. 

Most tender Spirit ! Mighty God ! 

Sweet must Thy Presence be, 
If loss of Jesus can be gain, 

So long as we have Thee ! 



THE SACRED HEART. 

Unchanging and Unchangeable, before angelic 

eyes. 
The Vision of the Godhead in its tranquil 

beauty lies ; 
And, like a city lighted up all gloriously within, 
Its countless lustres glance and gleam, and 

sweetest worship win. 
On the Unbegotten Father, awful well-spring 

of the Three, 
On the Sole Begotten Son's coequal Majesty, 



THE SACRED HEART. gi 

On Him eternally breathed forth from Father 

and from Son. 
The spirits gaze with fixed amaze, and unreck- 

oned a^es run. 



Chorus : 
Myriad, myriad angels raise 
Happy hymns of wondering praise, 
Ever through eternal days, 

Before the Holy Trinity, 

One Undivided Three ! 

Still the Fountain of the Godhead giveth forth 

eternal being : 
Still begetting, unbegotten, still His own per- 
fection seeing, 
Still limiting His own loved Self with His 

dear coequal Spirit, 
No change comes o'er that blissful Life, no 

shadow passeth near it. 
And beautiful dread Attributes, all manifold 

and bright. 
Now thousands seem, now lose themselves in 

one self-living light ; 
And far in that deep Life of God, in harmony 

complete, 
Like crownfed kings, all opposite perfections 

take their seat. 



92 THE SACRED HEART. 

And in that ungrowing vision nothing deep- 
ens, nothing brightens, 

But the living Life of God perpetually lightens ; 

And created life is nothing but a radiant shad- 
ow fleeing 

From the unapproach^d lustres of that Unbe- 
ginning Being; 

Spirits wise and deep have watched that ever- 
lasting Ocean, 

And never o'er its lucid field hath rippled 
faintest motion ; 

In glory undistinguished never have the Three 
seemed One, 

Nor ever in divided streams the Single Es- 
sence run. 

There reigns the Eternal Father, in His lone 
prerogatives. 

And, in the Father's Mind, the Son, all self- 
existing, live?. 

With Him, their xnutual Jubilee, that deepest 
depth of love, 

Lifegiving Life of two-fold source, the many 
gifted Dove ! 

O Bountiful! O Beautiful! can Power or Wis- 
dom add 

Fresh features to a life, so munificent and 
glad? 



THE SACRED HEART^. 93 

Can even uncreated Love, ye angels ! give a 

hue 
Which can ever make the Unchanging and 

Unchano^eable look new ? 



The Mercy of the Merciful is equal to Their 
Might, 

As wondrous as Their Love, and as Their 
Wisdom bright ! 

As They, who out of nothing called creation 
at the first. 

In everlasting purposes Their own design had 
nursed, — 

As They, who in their solitude, Three Per- 
sons, once abode, 

Vouchsafed of Their abundance to become 
creation's God, — 

What They owed not to Themselves They 
stooped to owe to man. 

And pledged Their glory to him, in an unim- 
aginable plan. 

See ! deep within the glowing depth of that 

Eternal Light. 
What change hath come, what vision new 

transports angelic sight ? 
A creature can it be, in uncreated bliss ? 
A novelty in God? Oh what nameless thing 

is this ? 



94 '^HE SACRED HEART. 

The beauty of the Father's Power is o'er it 
brightly shed, 

The sweetness of the Spirit's Love is unction 
on its head ; 

In the wisdom of the Son it plays its won- 
drous part, 

While it lives the loving life of a real Human 
heart ! 

A Heart that hath a Mother, and a treasure of 
red blood, 

A Heart that man can pray to, and feed upon 
for food ! 

In the brightness of the Godhead is its mar- 
vellous abode, 

A change in the Unchanging, creation touch- 
ing God ! 

Ye spirits blest, in endless rest, who on that 
Vision gaze, 

Salute the Sacred Heart with all your worship- 
ful amaze, 

And adore, while with ecstatic skill the Three 
in One ye scan. 

The Mercy that hath planted there that bles- 
sed Heart of Man ! 

All tranquilly, all tranquilly, doth that Blissful 
Vision last, 

And Its brightness o'er immortalized creation 
will it cast ; 



THE SACRED HEART. 95 

Ungrowing and unfading, Its pure Essence 

doth it keep, 
In the deepest of those depths where all are 

infinitely deep; 
Unchanging and Unchangeable as It hatli 

ever been, 
As It was before that Human heart was there 

by angels seen. 
So is it at this very hour, so will it ever be, 
With that Human Heart within It, beating hot 

with love of me ! 

Chorus ; 
Myriad, myriad angels raise 
Happy hymns of wondering praise, 
Ever through eternal days. 

Before the Holy Trinity, 

One Undivided Three ! 





i 




PAET TIIIKJ). 
®l)e Saill), anb i\)c QpiviUxai tiU. 



THANKSGIVING AFTER COMMU- 
NION. 

Jesus, gentlest Saviour ! 

God of might and power ! 
Thou Thyself art dwelling 

In us at this hour. 

Nature cannot hold Thee, 

Heaven is all too strait 
For Thine endless glory, 

And Thy royal state. 

7 



THANKSGIVING AFTER COMMUNION. 

Out beyond the shining 

Of the furthest star, 
Thou art ever stretching 

Infinitely far. 

Yet the hearts of children 
Hold what worlds cannot, 

And the God of wonders 
Loves the lowly spot. 

As men to their gardens 
Go to seek sweet flowers. 

In our hearts dear Jesus 
Seeks them at all hours. 

Jesus, gentlest Saviour! 

Thou art in us now ; 
Fill us full of goodness, 

'TiU our hearts o'erflow. 

Pray the prayer within us 
That to heaven shall rise ; 

Sing the song that angels 
Sing above the skies. 

Multiply our graces, 

Chiefly love and fear, 
And, dear Lord ! the chiefest— 

Grace to persevere. 



LONGING FOR GOD. 

Oh, how can we thank Thee 

For a gift like this, 
Gift that truly maketh 

Heaven's eternal bliss ? 

Ah ! when wilt Thou always 

Make our hearts thy home ? 
We must wait for heaven, — 
Then the day will come. 

Now at least we'll keep Thee 
All the time we may ; 

But Thy grace and blessing 
We will keep alway. 



LONGING FOR GOD. 

How gently flow the silent years, 

The seasons one by one ; 
How sweet to feel, each month that goes. 

That life must soon be done ! 

O weary ways of earth and men ! 

O self more weary still ! 
How vainly do you vex the heart 

That none but God can fill ! 



99 



OO LONGING FOR GOD. 

It is not weariness of life 

That makes us wish to die ; 
But we are drawn by cords which come 

From out eternity. 

Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, 

No heart of man can tell. 
The store of joys God has prepared 

For those who love him well. 

Oh may those joys one day be ours, 

Upon that happy shore ! 
And yet those joys are not enough — 

We crave for something more. 

The world's unkindness grows with life, 

And troubles never cease ; 
'Twere lawful then to wish to die. 

Simply to be at peace. 

Yes ! peace is something more than joy, 

Even the joys above ; 
For peace, of all created things. 

Is hkest Him we love. 

But not for joy nor yet for peace, 

Dare we desire to die ; 
God's will on earth is always joy. 

Always tranquiUity. 



EVENING HYMN. 

To die, that we might sin no more, 
Were scarce a hero's prayer ; 

And glory grows as grace matures, 
And patience loves to bear. 

And yet we long and long to die. 

We covet to be free, 
Not for Thy great rewards, O God ! 

Not for Thy peace — but Thee. 

But call not this a selfish love, 

A turning from the fight ; 
And tell us not for others' sakes. 

To doubt if this be right. 

Ah, leave us, then, at peace, to greet 
Each waxing, waning moon. 

Whose silver light seems aye to say — 
Soon, e^^ile spirit! soon 



EVENING HYMN. 

Sweet Saviour ! bless us ere we go ; 

Thy word into our minds instil ; 
And make our lukewarm hearts to glow 

With lowly love and fervent will. 
Through life's long day and death's- dark night, 
O gentle Jesus ! be our light. 



102 EVENING HYMN. 

The day is done ; its hours have run ; 

And Thou hast taken count of all, 
The scanty triumphs grace hath won, 

The broken vow, the frequent fall. 
Through life's long day and death's dark night, 
O gentle Jesus ! be our light. 

Grant us, dear Lord ! from evil ways 

True absolution and release ; 
And bless us more than in past days 

With purity and inward peace. 
Through life's long day and death's dark night, 
O gentle Jesus ! be our light. 

Do more than pardon, give us joy, 

Sweet fear and sober liberty. 
And loving hearts without alloy, 

That only long to be Hke Thee. 
Through life's long day and death's dark night, 
O gentle Jesus ! be our light. 

Labor is sweet, for Thou hast toiled. 
And care is light, for Thou hast cared ; 

Let not our works with self be soiled, 
Nor in unsimple ways ensnared. 

Through life's long day and death's dark night, 

O gentle Jesus ! be our light. 

For all we love, the poor, the sad, 
The sinful, — unto Thee we call ; 



THE THOUGHT OF GOD. I03 

Oh let Thy- mercy make us glad ; 
Thou art our Jesus and our All, 
Through life's long day and death's dark night. 
O gentle Jesus ! be our light. 



THE THOUGHT OF GOD. 

The thought of God, the thought of Thee, 

Who liest in my heart. 
And yet beyond imagined space 

Outstretched and present art, — 
The thought of Thee, above, below, 

Around me and within. 
Is more to me than health and wealth, 

Or love of kith and kin. 

The thought of God is like the tree 

Beneath whose shade I lie. 
And watch the fleets of snowy clouds 

Sail o'er the silent sky. 

'Tis like that soft invading light, 

Which in all dark.iess shines. 
The thread that through life's sombre web 

In golden pattern twines. 

It is a thought which ever makes 
Life's sweetest smiles from tears, 

And is a daybreak to our hopes. 
A sunset to our fears ; 



t04 THE THOUGHT OF GOD. 

One while it bids the tears to flow, 
Then wipes them from the eyes, 

Most often fills our souls with joy. 
And always sanctifies. 

Within a thought so great, our souls 

Little and modest grow, 
And, by its vastness awed, we learn 

The art of walking slow. 

The wild flower on the mossy ground 
Scarce bends its pliant form, 

When overhead the autumnal wood 
Is thundering like a storm. 

So is it with our humbled souls 
Down in the thought of God, 

Scarce conscious in their sober peace 
Of the wild storms abroad. 

To think of Thee is almost prayer, 
And is outspoken praise ; 

And pain can even passive thoughts 
To actual worship raise. 

O Lord ! I live always in pain, 

My life's sad undersong, 
Pain in itself not hard to bear, 

But hard to bear so long. 



THE FEAR OF GOD. 105 

Little sometimes weighs more than much, 

When it has no rehef ; 
A joyless life is worse to bear 

Than one of active grief. 

And yet, O Lord ! a suffering life 

One grand ascent may dare ; 
Penance, not self-imposed, can make 

The whole of life a prayer. 

All murmurs lie inside Thy Will 
Which are to Thee addressed ; 

To suffer for Thee is our work. 
To think of Thee our rest. 



THE FEAR OF GOD. 

My fear of Thee, O Lord, exults 

Like life within my veins, 
A fear which rightly claims to be 

One of love's sacred pains. 

Thy goodness to Thy saints of old 

An awful thing appeared ; 
For were Thy majesty less good 

Much less would it be feared. 

There is no joy the soul can meet , 

Upon life's various road 
Like the sweet fear that sits and shrinks 

Under the eye of Gpd. 



Io6 THE FEAR OF GOD. 

A special joy is in all love 

For objects we revere ; 
Thus joy in God will always be 

Proportioned to our fear. 

Oh Thou art greatly to be feared, 

Thou art so prompt to bless ! 
The dread to miss such love as Thine 

Makes fear but love's excess. 

The fulness of Thy mercy seems 

To fill both land and sea ; 
If we can break through bounds so vast, 

How exiled shall we be ! 

For grace is fearful, which each hour 
Our path in life has crossed ; 

If it were rarer, it might be 
Less easy to be lost. 

But fear is love, and love is fear, 

And in and out they move ; 
But fear is an intenser joy 

Than mere unfrightened love. 

When most I fear Thee, Lord ! then most 

Familiar I appear ; 
And I am in my soul most free, 

When I am most in fear. 

I should not love Thee as I do. 
If love might make more free ; 



THE FEAR OF GOD. IO7 

Its very sweetness would be lost 
In greater liberty. 

I feel Thee most a father, when 

I fancy Thee most near : 
And Thou comest not so nigh in love 

As Thou comest, Lord ! in fear. 

They love Thee little, if at all, 

Who do not fear Thee much ; 
If love is Thine attraction. Lord ! 

Fear is Thy very touch. 

Love could not love Thee half so much 

If it found Thee not so near ; 
It is thy nearness, which makes love 

The perfectness of fear. 

We fear because Thou art so good, 

And because we can sin ; 
And when we make most show of love, 

We are trembling most within. 

And Father! when to us in heaven 

Thou shalt Thy Face unveil. 
Then more than ever will our souls 

Before Thy goodness quail. 
Our blessedness will be to bear 

The sight of Thee so near. 
And thus eternal love will be 

But the ecstasy of fear. 



1 08 PEE VJSHNESS. 



PEEVISHNESS. 



O God ! that I could be with Thee, 

Alone by some sea shore, 
And hear Thy soundless voice within. 

And the outward waters roar. 

The cold wet wind would seem to wash, 
The world from off my brow : 

And I should feel amidst the storm 
That none were near but Thou. 

Each wave that broke upon the rocks 
Would seem to break on me ; 

And he who stands an outward shock 
Gains inward liberty. 

Upon the wings of wild sea-birds. 
My dark thoughts would I lay, 

And let them bear them out to sea, 
In the tempest far away. 

For life has grown a simple weight ; 

Each effort seems a fall ; 
And all things weary me on earth. 

But good things most of ali. 



PEEVISHNESS. IO9 

And 1 am deadly sick of men, 
From shame and not from pride ; 

My love of souls, my joy in saints, 
Are blossoms that have died. 

It seems as if I loathed the earth, 
And yet craved not for heaven, 

But for another nature longed, 
Not that which Thou hast given. 

For goodness all ignoble seems, 

Ungenerous and small, 
And the holy are so wearisome, 

Their very virtues pall. 

Alas ! this peevishness with good 

Is want of love of God ; 
Unloving thoughts within distort 

The look of things abroad. 

The discord is within, which jars 

So sadly in life's song : 
Tis we, not they, who are in fault, 

When others seem so wrong. 

Tis we who weigh upon ourselves ; 

Self is the irksome weight : 
To those, who can see straight themselves, 

All things look always straight. 



10 PEEVISHNESS. 

My God ! with what surpassing love 

Thou lovest all on earth, 
How good the least good is to Thee, 

How much each soul is worth ! 

I seem to think if I could spend 

One hour alone with Thee, 
My human heart would come again 

From Thy Divinity. 

And yet I cannot build a cell 

For Thee within my heart. 
And meet Thee, as Thy chosen do. 

Where Thou most truly art. 

The bright examples round me seem 

My dazzled eyes to hurt ; 
Thy beauty, which they should reflect, 

They dwindle and invert. 

Therefore I crave for scenes which might 

My fetter'd thoughts unbind. 
And where the elements might be 

Like scapegoats to my mind, 

Where all things round should loudly tell, 
Storm, rocks, seabirds, and sea. 

Not of Thy worship, but much more, 
And only, Lord ! of Thee. 



PREDESTINA TION. 



PREDESTINATION. 

Father and God ! my endless doom 

Is- hidden in Thy Hand, 
And I shall know not what it is 

Till at Thy bar I stand. 

Thou knowest what Thou hast decreed 

For me in Thy dread Will ; 
I in my helpless ignorance 

Must tremble and he still. 

All hght is darkness, when I think 

Of what may be my fate ; 
Yet hearts will trust, and hope can teach 

Both faith and love to wait. 

A little strife of flesh and soul, 

A single word from Thee, 
And in a moment I possess 

A fixed eternity : — 

Fixed, fixed, irrevocably fixed ! 

Oh at this silent hour 
The thought of what is possible 

Comes with terrific power : 
As though into some awful depth 

Rash hands had flung a stone, 
And still the frightening echoes grow, 

As it ofoes soundins: on. 



[ 2 P REDES TINA TION. 

My fears adore Thee, O my God ! 

My heart is chilled with awe ; 
Yet love from out that very chill 

Fresh life and heat can draw. 

Thou owest me no duties, Lord ! - 

Thy Being hath no ties ; 
The world lies open to Thy Will, 

Its victim and its prize. 

Father ! Thy power is merciful 

To us poor worms below, 
Not bound by justice, but because 

Thyself hath willed it so. 

The fallen creature hath no rights, 

No voice in Thy decrees ; 
Yet while Thy glory owns no claims, 

Thy love makes promises. 

Thou mayest have willed that I should die 
In friendship, Lord ! with Thee, 

Or I may in the act of sin 
Touch on eternity. 

What can I do but trust Thee, Lord ! 

For Thou art God alone ? 
My soul is safer in Thy hands, 

Father ! than in my own. 



THE RIGHT MUST WIN. II3 

I worship Thee with breathless fears ; 

Thou wilt do what Thou wilt ; 
The worst Thine anger hath in store 

Is far below my guilt. 

O fearful thought ! one act of sin 

Within itself contains 
The power of endless hate of God. 

And everlasting pains. 

For me to do such act I know 

How slight a change I need, 
Yet know not if restraining grace 

For me hath been decreed. 

What can I do but trust Thee^ Lord ? 

That trust my heart will cheer; 
And love must learn to live abashed 

Beneath continual fear. 

That Thou art God is my one joy ; 

Whate'er Thy Will may be, 
Thy glory will be magnified 

In Thy last doom of me. 



THE RIGHT MUST WIN. 

Oh it is hard to work for God, 
To rise and take His part 

Upon this battlefield of earth, 
And not sometimes lose heart! 
8 



114 THE RIGHT MUST WIN. 

He hides Himself so wondrously, 
As though there were no God ; 

He is least seen when all the powers 
Of ill are most abroad. 

Or He deserts us at the hour 

The fight is all but lost ; 
And seems to leave us to ourselves 

Just when we need Him most. 

Yes, there is less to try our faith, 

In our mysterious creed. 
Than in the godless look of earth, 

In these our hours of need. 

Ill masters good; good seems to change 

To ill with greatest ease ; 
And, worst of all, the good with good 

Is at cross purposes. 

It is not so, but so it looks ; 

And we lose courage then ; 
And doubts will come if God hath kept 

His promises to men. 

Ah ! God is other than we think ; 

His ways are far above, 
Far beyond reason's height, and reached 

Only by childlike love. 



THE RIGHT MUST IVIN. I 

The look, the fashion of God's ways 

Love's lifelong study are : 
She can be bold, and guess, and act, 

When reason would not dare. 

She has a prudence of her own ; 

Her step, is firm and free ; 
Yet there is cautious science too 

In her simplicity. 

Workmen of God ! Oh lose not heart. 

But learn what God is like ; 
And in the darkest battlefield 

Thou shalt know where to strike. 

Thrice blest is he to whom is given 

The instinct that can tell 
That God is on the field when He 

Is most invisible. 

Blest too is he who can divine 

Where real right doth lie, 
And dares to take the side that seems 

Wrong to man's blindfold eye. 

Then learn to scorn the praise of men, 

And learn to lose with God ; 
For Jesus won the world through shame, 

And beckons thee His road. 



tl6 THE RIGHT MUST WIN. 

God's glory is a wondrous thing, 
Most strange in all its ways, 

And, of all things on earth, least like 
What men agree to praise. 

As He can endless glory weave 
From what men reckon shame, 

In His own world He is content 
To play a losing game. 

Muse on His justice, downcast soul ! 

Muse and take better heart ; 
Back with thine angel to the field, 

And bravely do thy part. 

God's justice is a bed, where we 
Our anxious hearts may lay, 

And, weary with ourselves, may sleep 
Our discontent away. 

For right is right, since God is God ; 

And right the day must win ; 
To doubt would be disloyalty, 

To falter would be sin. 



DESIRE OF GOD. 



DESIRE OF GOD. 

Oh for freedom, for freedom in worshipping 

God, 
For the mountain-top feeling of generous 

souls. 
For the health, for the air, of the hearts deep 

and broad. 
Where grace not in rills but in cataracts rolls ! 

Most good is the brisk wholesome service of 

fear. 
And the calm wise obedience of conscience is 

sweet ; 
And good are all worships, all loyalties dear, 
All promptitudes fitting, all services meet. 

But none honours God like the thirst of 

desire, 
Nor possesses the heart so completely with 

Him; 
For it burns the world out with the swift ease 

of fire, 
And fills life with good works till it runs o'ei 

the brim. 

Then pray for desire, for love's wistfullest 

yearning. 
For the beautiful pining of holy desire ; 



Il8 DESIRE OF GOD. 

Yes, pray for a soul that is ceaselessly burn- 
ing 

With the soft fragrant flames of this thrice 
happy fire. 



For the heart only dwells, truly dwells with 

its treasure. 
And the languor of love captive hearts can 

unfetter ; 
And they who love God cannot love Him by 

measure, 
For their love is but hunger to love Him still 

better. 

Is it hard to serve God, timid soul ? Hast 

thou found 
Gloomy forests, dark glens, mountain-tops on 

thy way ? 
All the hard would be easy, all the tangles 

unwound, 
Wouldst thou only desire, as well as obey. 

For the lack of desire is the ill of all ills ; 
Many thousands through it the dark pathway 

have trod, 
The balsam, the wine of predestinate wills 
Is a jubilant pining and longing for God. 



I 



DESIRE OF GOD. II9 

'Tis a fire that will burn what thou canst not 

pass over ; 
'Tis a lightning that breaks away all bars to 

los^e; 
'Tis a sunbeam the secrets of God to discover ; 
'Tis the wing David prayed for, the wing of 

the Dove. 

I have seen living men — and their good angels 

know 
How they failed and fell short through the 

want of desire : 
Souls once almost saints have descended so 

low, 
'Twill be much if their wings bear them over 

the fire. 

I have seen dying men not so grand in their 

dying 
As our love would have wished, — and through 

lack of desire : 
Oh that we may die languishing, burning, and 

sighing ; 
For God's last grace and best is to die all 

on fire. 

^is a great gift of God to live after our Lord , 
Yet the old Hebrew times they were ages of 
fire, 



I20 . DESIRE OF GOD. 

When fainting souls fed on each dim figured 

word, 
And God called men He loved most — the Men 

of Desire. 

Oh then wish more for God, burn more with 
desire, 

Covet more the dear sight of his marvellous 
Face ; 

Pray louder, pray longer, for the sweet gift of 
fire 

To come down on thy heart with its whirl- 
winds of grace. 

Yes, pine for thy God, fainting soul! ever 

pine ; 
Oh languish mid all that life brings thee of 

mirth ; 
Famished, thirsty, and restless, — let such life 

be thine, — 
For what sight is to heaven, desire is to earth. 

God loves to be longed for. He loves to be 

sought. 
For He sought us Himself with such longing 

and love: 
He died for desire of us, marvellous thought ! 
And He yearns for us now to be with Him 

above. 



SCHOOL HYMN. 



SCHOOL HYMN 



O Jesus ! God and Man ! 

For love of children once a child ! 
O Jesus ! God and Man ! 

We hail Thee Saviour sweet and mild. 

O Jesus ! God and Man ! 

Make us poor children dear to Thee, 
And lead us to Thyself, 

To love Thee for eternity. 

O Jesus ! God's dear Son ! 

On Thee for grace we children call ; 
Make us all men to love. 

But to love Thee beyond them all. 

O Jesus ! bless our work. 

Our sorrows soothe, our sins forgive ; 
O happy, happy they 

Who in the Church of Jesus live ! 

O God, most great and good. 
At work or play, by night or day. 

Make us remember Thee, 
Who so rememberest us alway. 



THE TRUE SHEPHERD. 



THE TRUE SHEPHERD. 

I was wandering and weary 

When my Saviour came unto me ; 
Tor the ways of sin grew dreary, 

And the world had ceased to woo me ; 
And I thought I heard Him say, 
As He came along His way, 

O silly souls ! come near Me ; 
My sheep should never fear Me ; 
I am the Shepherd true. 

At first I would not hearken. 

And put off till the morrow ; 
But life began to darken. 

And I was sick with sorrow ; 
And I thought I heard Him say. 
As He came along His way, 

Oh silly souls ! come near Me ; 
My sheep should never fear Me ; 
I am the Shepherd true. 

At last I stopped to listen, 

His voice could not deceive me ; 

I saw His kind eyes glisten, 
So anxious to relieve me : 

And I thought I heard Him say, 

As He came along His way, 



THE TRUE SHEPHERD. 1 23 

Oh silly souls ! come near Me ; 
My sheep slipuld never fear Me ; 
I am the Shepherd true. 

He took me on His shoulder, 

And tenderly He kissed me ; . 
He bade my love be bolder, 

And said how He had missed me ; 
And I'm sure I heard Him say. 
As He went along His way, 

O silly souls ! come near Me ; 
My sheep should never fear Me ; 
I am the Shepherd true. 

Strange gladness seemed to move Him, 

Whenever I did better ; 
And he coaxed me so to love Him, 

As if He was my debtor; 
And I always heard Him say. 
As He went along His way, 

silly souls ! come near me ; 
My sheep should never fear Me ; 

1 am the Shepherd true. 

I thought His love would weaken. 
As more and more He knew me ; 

But it burneth like a beacon ; 

And its light and heat go through me ; 

And I ever hear Him say. 

As He goes along His way, 



124 COME TO JESUS. 

O silly souls ! come near Me ; 
My sheep should never fear Me ; 
I am the Shepherd true. 

Let us do then, dearest brothers ! 

What will best and longest please us, 
Follow not the ways of others, 

But trust ourselves to Jesus ; 
We shall ever hear Him say. 
As He goes along His way, 

O silly souls ! come near Me ; > 
My sheep should never fear Me ; 
I am the Shepherd true. 



COME TO JESUS. 

Souls of men ! why will ye scatter 
Like a crowd of frightened sheep ? 

Foolish hearts ! why will ye wander 
From a love so true and deep ? 

Was there ever kindest shepherd 
Half so gentle, half so sweet 

As the Saviour who would have us 
Come and gather round His Feet ? 

It is God : His love looks mighty. 
But is mightier than it seems : 

'Tis our Father: and His fondness 
Goes far out beyond our dreams. 



COME TO JESUS. 125 

There's a wideness in God's mercy, 

Like the wideness of the sea : 
There's a kindness in His justice, 

Which is more than liberty. 

There is no place where earth's sorrows 
Are more felt than up in heaven ; 

There is no place where earth's failings 
Have such kindly judgment given. 

There is welcome for the sinner, 
And more graces for the good ; 

There is mercy with the Saviour; 
There is healing in His Blood. 

There is grace enough for thousands 
Of new worlds as great as this ; 

There is room for fresh creations 
In that upper home of bliss. 

For the love of God is broader 

Than the measures of man's mind ; 

And the Heart of the Eternal 
Is most wonderfully kind. 

But we make His love too narrow 

By false limits of our own ; 
And we magnify His strictness 

With a zeal He will not own. 



126 INVITATION TO THE MISSION. 

There is plentiful redemption 
In the Blood that has been shed ; 

There is joy for all the members 
In the sorrows of the Head. 

'Tis not all we owe to Jesus ; 

It is something more than all; 
Greater good because of evil, 

Larger mercy through the fall. 

Pining Souls ! come nearer Jesus, 
And oh come not doubting thus. 

But with faith that trusts more bravely 
His huge tenderness for us. 

If our love were but more simple, 
We should take Him at His word; 

And our lives would be all sunshine 
In the sweetness of our Lord. 



INVITATION TO THE MISSION. 

Oh come to the merciful Saviour who calls 
you, 
O come to the Lord who forgives and for- 
gets ; 
Though dark be the fortune on earth that 
befalls you. 
There's a bright home above where the sun 
never sets. 



I 



INVITATION TO THE MISSION. I27 

O come then to Jesus, whose arms are extended 
To fold His dear children in closest embrace ; 

Oh come, for your exile will shortly be ended, 
And Jesus will show you His beautiful Face. 



Yes, come to the Saviour, whose mercy grows 
brighter 
The longer you look at the depths of His 
love; 
And fear not ! 'tis Jesus, and life's cares grow 
lighter, 
As you think of the home and the glory 
above. 

Have you sinned as none else in the world 
have before you ? 
Are you blacker than all other creatures in 
guilt ? 
Oh fear not, and doubt not ! the mother who 
bore you 
Loves you less than the Saviour whose Blood 
you have spilt. 

O come then to Jesus, and say how you love 
Him, 
And vow at His feet you will keep in His 
grace ; 



1-28 THE WAGES OF SIN. 

For one tear that is shed by a sinner can move 
Him, 
And your sins will drop off in His tender 
embrace. 

Come, come to his feet and lay open your story 
Of suffering and sorrow, of guilt and of 
shame ; 
For the pardon of sin is the crown of His 
glory, 
And the joy of our Lord to be true to His 
Name. 

Come quickly to Jesus for graces and pardons. 
Come now, for who needs not His mercy and 
love ? 
Believe me, dear children, that England's fair 
gardens 
Are dull to the bright land that waits you 
above. 



THE WAGES OF SIN. 

Oh what are the wages of sin, 
The end of the race we have run ? 

We have slaved for. the master we chose, 
And what is the prize we have won ? 



I 



THE WAGES OF SIN. 1 29 

We gave away all things for him, 
And in truth it was much that was given,— 

We gave away Jesus and God, 
And the chance of our getting to heaven. 

We are worn out and weary with sin ; 

Its pleasures are poor at the best ; 
For what we remember, not worth 

Half an hour of a conscience at rest. 

For sin in the hand is not like 
The bright thing it looked to the eye ; 

Its taste is still worse than its touch ; 
Yet we swallow the poison and die. 

Oh fools that we were ! can we now 
Break off the bad bargain \ve made ? 

And is there a way to get back 

The rash price we already have paid ? 

Oh yes ! we have got but to send 
One word or one sigh up to heaven, 

The mischief will all be undone, 
And the past be completely forgiven. 

Jesus is just wliat He was, 

On the Cross, as we left Him before, 
All gentleness, mercy, and love. 

Nay, His love and His mercy look more. 



130 A GOOD confession: 

We will back with our hearts in our hands, 
For the heart is His one only fee ; 

Forgive us, dear Jesus, forgive. 
All we want is forgiveness from Thee. 



A GOOD CONFESSION. 

The chains that have bound me are flung to 
the wind, 
By the mercy of God the poor slave is set 
free; 
And the strong grace of heaven breathes fresh 
o'er the mind, 
Like the bright winds of summer that glad- 
den the sea. 

There was nought in God's world half so dark 
or so vile 
As the sin and the bondage that fettered 
my soul ; 
There was nought half so base as the malice 
and guile 
Of my own sordid passions, or Satan's con- 
trol. 

For years I have borne about hell in my 
breast ; 
When I thought of my God it was nothing 
but gloom ; 



A GOOD CONFESSION. 131 

Day brought me no pleasure, night gave me 
no rest, 
There was still the grim shadow of horrible 
doom. 

it seemed as if nothing less likely could be 
Than that light should break in on a dun- 
geon so deep ; 
To create a new world were less hard than to 
free 
The slave from his bondage, the soul from 
its sleep. 

But the word had gone forth, and said. Let 
there be light. 
And it flashed through my soul like a sharp 
passing smart ; 
One look to my Saviour, and all the dark night, 
Like a dream scarce remembered, was gone 
from my heart. 

I cried out for mercy, and fell on my knees, 
And confessed, while my heart with keen 
sorrow was wrung; 
'Twas the labor of minutes, and years of 
disease 
Fell as fast from my soul as the words from 
my tongue. 



132 THE ACT OF CONTRITION. 

And now, blest be God and the sweet Lord 
who died ! 
No deer on the mountain, no bird in the sky, 
No bright wave that leaps on the dark bound- 
ing tide, 
Is a creature so free or so happy as I. 

All hail, then, all hail, to the dear Precious 
Blood, 
That hath worked these sweet wonders of 
mercy in me ; 
May each day countless numbers throng down 
to its flood, 
And God have His glory, and sinners go 
free. 



THE ACT OF CONTRITION. 

My God! who art nothing but mercy and 
kindness, 
Ah shut not Thine ear to the penitent's 
prayer ; 
'Tis Thy grace that hath cured me, dear Lord, 
of my bhndness, 
Thy love that hath lifted me up from despair. 

Oh cruel, most cruel ! the bondage of evil 
That hath kept me so fast, and hath held 
me so low ; 



THE ACT OF CONTRITION. 1 33 

And fearful the hold, the strong hold of the 
devil, 
And the keen bitter fires of the long hopeless 
woe. 

Cut, O God! by Thy mercy my mind is en- 
lightened ; 
I feel a. new purpose burn strong in my 
heart ; 
I come to Thee now like a child scared and 
frightened, 
And I cling to Thy love and will never 
depart. 

There is not one evil that sin hath not brought 
me. 
There is not one good that hath come in its 
train ; 
It hath cursed me through life, and its sorrows 
have sought me, 
Each day that went by, in want, sickness, 
or pain. 

And then, when this life of affliction is ended. 
What a home for my weary heart did it pre- 
pare ? 
The anger of Him whom my sins had offended, 
And the night, the sick night of eternal 
despair. 



134 THE ACT OF CONTRITION. 

Yes ! death would have come, and its angCi 
have torn me 
By force to the judgment where hope could 
not be : 
And the spirit of darkness from thence would 
have borne me 
To unspeakable woes in his unde burning 
sea. 



Where the worms and the wails and the lashes 
cease never, 
My poor ruined soul would have sickened 
of fire, 
And I should be tortured for ever and ever. 
But the pains of eternity never would tire. 

The corn-field all trampled to mud by the 
cattle. 
The house whose scorched walls have been 
blackened by fire, — 
Ah! such was my soul when the desolate 
battle 
Of sin raged within it, and sinful desire. 

But away, mortal sin ! by the help of my God, 
From thy false poisoned fruits I will firmly 
refrain ; 



THE ACT OF CONTRITION. 135 

I have vowed, mortal sin! I have manfully 
vowed, 
I will touch thee not, taste tlee not ever 
again. 

I abjure the dark spirit who fondles yet hates 
me, 
I abjure mortal sin, the black gift he hath 
given ; 
I hate it for fear of the fire that awaits me, 
I hate it for hope of God's beautiful heaven. 

I hate it because the dear Lord that would 
ease us 
Sweated blood when He thought of the 
horror of sin ; 
I hate it because it had crucified Jesus, 
Who hath done all He can the worst sinners 
to win. 

And I swear to Thee — yes, dearest Jesus ! Oh 
let me, 
In the strength of Thy grace, swear an oath 
unto Thee, 
No sin ! never more ! if Thou wilt not forget 
me, 
But in Thy sweet mercy have mercy on me. 



136 CONVERSION. 



CONVERSION. 



O Faith ! thou workest miracles 

Upon the hearts of men, 
Choosing thy home in those same hearts 

We know not how nor when. 

To one thy grave unearthly truths 

A heavenly vision seem ; 
While to another's eye they are 

A superstitious dream. 

To one the deepest doctrines look 

So naturally true, 
That when he learns the lesson first 

He hardly thinks it new. 

To other hearts the selfsame truths 

No Hght or heat can bring; 
They are but puzzling phrases strung 

Like beads upon a string. 

O gift of gifts ! O grace of Faith ! 

My God ! how can it be 
That Thou, who hast discerning love, 

Shouldst give that gift to me ? 



J 



CONVERSION. 137 

There was a place, there was a time, 

Whether by night or day, 
Tliy Spirit came and left that gift, 

And went upon His way. 

How many hearts Thou mightst have had 

More innocent than mine, 
How many souls more worthy far 

Of that sweet touch of Thine ! 

Ah grace ! into unlikeliest hearts 

It is thy boast to come, 
The glory of thy light to find 

In darkest spots a home. , 

How can they live, how will they die. 

How bear the cross of grief. 
Who have not got the light of faith, 

The courage of belief ? 

The crowd of cares, the weightiest cross, 

Seem trifles less than light; ' 
Earth looks so little and so low, 

When faith shines full and bright. 

Oh happy, happy that I am ! 

If thou canst be, O Faith, 
The treasure that thou art in life, 

What wilt thou be in death ? 



t^S THE WORK OF GRACE. 



THE WORK OF GRACE. 

How the light of heaven is stealing, 

Gently o'er the trembling soul ; 
And the shades of bitter feeling 
From the lightened spirit roll. 
Sweetly steahng, sweetly steaHng, 
See how grace its way is feeling ! 

Fairer than the pearly morning 

Comes the softly struggling ray : 
Ah, it is the very dawning 
That precedes eternal day. 

Sweetly stealing, sweetly stealing, 
See how grace its way is feeling. 

See the tears, the blessed trouble, 

Doubts and fears, and hopes and smiles 
How the guilt of sin seems double. 
And how plain are Satan's wiles ! 
Sweetly stealing, sweetly stealing. 
See how grace its way is feeling ! 

Now the light is growing brighter, 

Fear of hell, and hate of sin ; 
Another flash ! the heart is lighter ; 
Love of God hath entered in. 

Sweetly stealing, sweetly stealing, 
See how grace its way is feeling. 



FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 

Now upon the favourite passion 

Falls a steady ray of grace ; 
And the lights of world and fashion 
In the new light fade apace. 

Sweetly stealing, sweetly stealing, 
See how grace its way is feeling. 

See ! more light ! the spirit tingles 

With contrition's piercing dart; — 
More, — and love divinely mingles 
Ease and gladness with the smart. 
Sweetly stealing, sweetly stealing, 
See how grace its way is feeling ! 

Free ! free ! the joyous light of heaven 

Comes with full and fair release ; — 
O God, what light ! all sin forgiven, 
Jesus, mercy, love, and peace. 

Sweetly stealing, sweetly stealing. 
See how grace its way is feeling ! 



FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 
O do you hear that voice from heaven, — 
Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. 
Softly on every wind that blows 
Through the wide earth the promise goes. 
Absolving sin and opening heaven. 
For we forgive and are forgiven. 



140 FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES. 

Yes, we, dear Lord ! Thy voice can tell ; 
That gentle voice, we know it well ; 
Yet never was it sweet and clear 
As now when we this promise hear, — 
Poor souls ! who sadly doubt of heaven, 
Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. 

Sweet Faith ! and can this pledge be true ? 
And is the duty hard to do ? 
No one, dear Lord ! hath done to me 
Such wrong as I have done to Thee. 
Why should not all men go to heaven ? 
They who' forgive will be forgiven. 

Thine offers, earth ! to this are dull, — 

Full mercy to the merciful : — 

O joy to every soul that lives ! 

Such beautiful bright words He gives, 

Whose royal promise cheapens heaven, — 

Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. 

Then listen to us, Jesus, Lord ! 

See how we take Thee at Thy word : 

Oh as we hope with Thee to live, 

So from our hearts do we forgive ; 

And from this hour we do not know 

The thought, the thing men mean by foe. 

Yes ! saved and saints we all will be ; 
All of us, Lord ! will come to Thee : 



THE WORLD. I4I 

Dear heaven ! the work for thee is done, — 
How easily, how sweetly won ! 
Yes ! thou art ours, eternal heaven ! 
For we forgave, and are forgiven. 



THE WORLD. 

O Jesus ! if in days gone by 

My heart hath loved the world too well, 
It needs more love for love of Thee 

To bid this cherished world farewell. 

And yet I can rejoice there are 
So many things on earth to love, 

So many idols for the fire, 
My love and loyal change to prove. 

He that loves most hath most to lose. 
And willing loss is love's best prize ; 

The more that Yesterday hath loved 
The more To-day can sacrifice. 

Earth ! thou art too beautiful. 

And thou, dear Home ! thou art too sweet, 
The winning ways of flesh and blood 

Too smooth for sinners' pilgrim feet. 



142 THE WORLD. 

The woods and flowers, and running streams, 
The sunshine of the common skies, 

The round of household peace — what heart 
But owns the might of these dear ties ? 

The sweetness of known faces is 
A couch where weary souls repose ; 

Known voices are as David's harp 
Bewitching Saul's oppressive woes. 

And yet, bright World ! thou art not wise ; 

Oh no ! enchantress though thou art, 
Thou art not skilful in thy way 

Of dealing with a weary heart. 

If thou hadst kept thy faith with me, 
I might have been thy servant still ; 

But slighted love and broken faith, 

Poor world ! these are beyond thy skill. 

Oh bless thee, bless thee, treacherous World ! 

That thou dost play so false a part, 
And drive, like sheep into the fold, 

Our loves into our Saviour's Heart. 

This have I leaned upon, sweet Lord ! 

This world hath had Thy rightful place ; 
But come, dear jealous King of love ! 

Come, and begin Thy reign of grace. 



THE END OF MAN. 1 43 

Banish far from me all I love, 

The smiles of friends, the old fireside, 

And drive me to that home of homes, 
The Heart of Jesus Crucified. 

Take all the light away from earth, 
Take all that men can love from me ; 

Let all I lean upon give way. 
That I may lean on nought but Thee. 



THE END OF MAN. 

I come to Thee once more, my God ! 

No longer will I roam ; 
For I have sought the wide world through, 

And never found a home. 

Though bright and many are the spots 

Where I have built a nest. 
Yet in the brightest still I pined 

For more abiding rest. 

Riches could bring me joy and power, 

And they were fair to see ; 
Yet gold was but a sorry god 

To serve instead of Thee. 



1:44 THE END OF MAN. 

Then honour and the world's good word 

Appeared a nobler faith ; 
Yet could I rest on bliss that hung 

And trembled on a breath ? 

The pleasure of the passing hour 

My spirit next could wile ; 
But soon, full soon my heart fell sick 

Of pleasure's weary smile. 

More selfish grown, I worshipped health, 
The flush of manhood's power ; 

But then it came and went so quick, 
It was but for an hour. 



And thus a not unkindly world 

Hath done its best for me ; 
Yet I have found, O God ! no rest, 

No harbour short of Thee. 

For Thou hast made this wondrous soul 

All for ^Thyself alone ; 
Ah ! send Thy sweet transforming grace 

To make it more Thine own. 



THE REMEMBRANCE OF MERCY. 1 45 



THE REMEMBRANCE OF MERCY. 

Why art thou sorrowful, servant of God ? 
And what is this dulness that hangs o'er 
thee now ? 
Sing the praises of Jesus, and sing them 
aloud, 
And the song shall dispel the dark cloud 
from thy brow. 

For is there a thought in the wide world so 
sweet, 
As that God has so cared for us, bad as 
we are. 
That He thinks of us, plans for us, stoops to 
entreat, 
And follows us, wander we ever so far ? 

Then how can the heart e'er be drooping or 
sad. 
Which God hath once touched with the 
light of His grace ? 
Can the child have a doubt who but lately 
hath laid 
Himself to repose in his father's embrace ? 

And is it not wonderful, servant of God ! 
That He should have honoured us so with 
His love, 

10 



14b THE REMRMBKANCE OF MERCY. 

That the sorrows of life should but shorten 
the road 
Which leads to Himself and the mansion 
above ? 

Oh then when the spirit of darkness comes 
down 
With clouds and uncertainties into thy 
heart, 
One look to thy Saviour, one thought of thy 
crown, 
And the tempest is over, the shadows de- 
part. 

That God hath once whispered a word in 
thine ear, 
Or sent thee from heaven one sorrow for 
sin. 
Is enough for a life both to banish all fear, 
And to turn into peace all the troubles 
within. 

The schoolmen can teach thee far less 
about heaven, 
Of the height of God's power, or the depth 
of His love. 
Than the fire in thy heart when thy sin was 
forgiven, 
Or the light that one mercy brings down 
from above. 



THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG, ETC. 147 

Then why dost thou weep so ? For see how 
time flies, 
The time that for loving and praising was 
given ! 
Away with thee, child, then, and hide thy red 
eyes 
In the lap, the kind lap, of thy Father in 
heaven. 



THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG ON HIS 
MARCH TO HEAVEN. 

Blest is the Faith, divine and strong, 

Of thanks and praise an endless fountam. 

Whose life is one perpetual song, 
High up the Saviour's holy mountain. 

Blest is the Hope that holds to God 
In doubt and darkness still unskaken, 

And sings along the heavenly road, 
Sweetest when most it seems forsaken. 

Blest is the Love that cannot love 

Aught that earth gives of best and brightest ; 
Whose raptures thrill like saints' above. 

Most when its earthly gifts are lightest. 



140 FIGHT FOR SION. 

Blest is the Time that in the eye 
Of God its hopeful watch is keeping, 

And grows into eternity, 
Like noiseless trees, when men are sleeping 

FIGHT FOR SION. 

Norw first for thee, thou wicked world, 
Puffed up with godless pomp and pageant ; 

Avenging grace to humble thee 
Can make the weakest arm its agent. 

And thou, dark fiend, six thousand years 
The Bride of Christ in vain tormenting. 

Shall find our hate and scorn of thee 
Deep as thine own, and unrelenting. 

Ah self ! so oft forgiven, thou 

Canst play no part but that of traitor ; 

We sjjare thy life ; but thou must bear 
The felon's brand, the captive's fetter. 

But worse than devil, flesh, or world. 
Human respect, like poison creeping. 

Chills and unnerves the hosts of Christ, 
When weary war-worn hearts are sleeping. 

Like lions roaring for their prey. 
Armies of foes are round us trooping : 

What then ? see ! countless angels come 
To heal the hurt, to raise the drooping. 



PERFECTION. 1 49 

Then bravely, comrades, to the fight, 
With shout and song each other cheering ; 

Strength not our own from heaven descends. 
The sun breaks out, the clouds are clearing. 

On to the gates of Sion, on ! 

Break through the foe with fresh endeavour ; 
We'll hang our colours up in heaven. 

When peace shall be proclaimed for ever. 



PERFECTION. 

Oh how the thought of God attracts 
And draws the heart from earth, 

And sickens it of passing shows 
And dissipating mirth ! 

'Tis not enough to save our souls, 

To shun the eternal fires ; 
The thought of God will rouse the heart 

To more sublime desires. 

God only is the creature's home. 

Though rough and straight the road ; 

Yet nothing less can satisfy 
The love that longs for God. 

Oh utter but the Name of God 
Down in your heart of hearts, 

And see how from the world at once 
All tempting light departs. 



:50 PERFECTION. 

A trusting heart, a yearning eye, 

Can win their way above ; 
If mountains can be moved by faith, 

Is there less power in love ? 

How little of that road, my soul ! 

How little hast thou gone ! 
Take heart, and let the thought of God 

Allure thee further on. 

The freedom from all wilful sin, 
The Christian's daily task, — 

Oh these are graces far below 
What longing love would ask ! 

Dole not thy duties out to God, 

But let thy hand be free : 
Look long at Jesus ; His sweet Blood, 

How was it dealt to thee ? 

The perfect way is hard to flesh ; 

It is not hard to love ; 
If thou wert sick for want of God, 

How swiftly wouldst thou move ! 

Then keep thy conscience sensitive ; 

No inward token miss : 
And go where grace entices thee ; — 

Perfection lies in this. 



THE GIFTS OF GOD. 

Be docile to thine unseen Guide, 
Love Him as He loves thee ; 

Time and obedience are enough, 
And thou a saint shall be. 



THE GIFTS OF GOD. 

My Soul! what hast thou done for God ? 

Look o'er thy misspent years and see ; 
Sum up what thou hast done for God, 

And then what God hath done for thee. 

He made thee when He might have made 
A soul that would have loved Him more : 

He rescued thee from nothingness. 
And set thee on life's happy shore. 

He placed an angel at thy side, 

And strewed joys round thee on thy way; 
He gave thee rights thou couldst not claim, 

And life, free life, before thee lay. 

Had God in heaven no work to do 

But miracles of love for thee ? 
No world to rule, no joy in Self, 

And in His own infinity ? 



152 THE GIFTS OF GOD. 

So must it seem to our blind eyes : 
He gave His love no sabbath rest, 

Still plotting happiness for men, 
And new designs to make them blest. 

From out His glorious Bosom came 

His only, His Eternal Son ; 
He freed the race of Satan's slaves, 

And with His Blood sin's captives won. 

The world rose up against His love : 

New love the vile rebellion met. 
As though God only looked at sin 

Its guilt to pardon and forget. 

For His Eternal Spirit came 

To raise the thankless slaves to sons, 

And with the sevenfold gifts of love 
To crown His own elected ones. 

Men spurned His grace ; their lips blasphemed 
The Love who made Himself their slave ; 

They grieved that blessed Comforter 
And tu'-ned against Him what He gave. 

Yet still the sun is fair by day, 
The moon still beautiful by night ; 

The world goes round, and joy with it, 
And life, free life is men's delight. 



THE GIFTS OF GOD. 1 53 

No voice God's wondrous silence breaks, 
No hand put forth His anger tells ; 

But He, the Omnipotent and Dread, 
On high in humblest patience dwells. 

The Son hath come ; and maddened sin 

The world's Creator crucified ; 
The Spirit comes, and stays, while men 

His presence doubt. His gifts deride. 

And now the Father keeps Himself, 
In patient and forbearing love, 

To be His creature's heritage 
In that undying life above. 

Oh wonderful, oh passing thought, 
The love that God hath had for thee, 

Spending on thee no less a sum 
Than the Undivided Trinity ! 

Father, and Son, and Holy Ghost, 
Exhausted for a thing like this, — 

The world's whole government disposed 
For one ungrateful creature's bliss ! 

What hast thou done for God my soul ? 

Look o'er thy misspent years and see ; 
Cry from thy worse than nothingness, 

Cry for His mercy upon thee. 



:54 TRUE LOVE. 



TRUE LOVE. 

Think well how Jesus trusts Himself 

Unto our childish love, 
As though by His free ways with us 

Our earnestness to prove. 
God gives Himself as Mary's Babe 

To sinners' trembling arms, 
And veils His everlasting light 

In childhood's feeble charms. 

His sacred Name a common word 

On earth He loves to hear ; 
There is no majesty in Him 

WJiich love may not come near. 
His priests, they bear Him in their hands, 

Helpless as babe can be ; 
His love seems very foolishness 

For its simplicity. 

The light of love is round His feet, 

His paths are never dim ; 
And He comes nigh to us when we 

Dare not come nigh to Him. 
Let us be simple with Him xnen, 

Not backward, stiff, or cold. 
As though our Bethlehem could be 

What Sina was of old. 



TRUE LOVE. 155 

His love of us may teach us how 

To love Him in return ; 
Love cannot help but grow more free 

The more its transports burn. 

The solemn face, the downcast eye, 
The words constrained and cold, — 

These are the homage, poor at best, 
Of those outside the fold. 

They know not how our God can play 
The Babe's, the Brother's part ; 

They dream not of the ways He has 
Of getting at the heart. 

Most winningly He lowers Himself, 
Yet they dare not come near ; 

They cannot know in their blind place 
The love that casts out fear. 

In lowest depths of littleness 

God sinks to gain our love ; 
They put away the sign in fear, 

And our free ways reprove. 

Would that they knew what Jesus was, 

And what untold abyss 
Lies in love's simple forwardness 

Of more than earthly bliss ! 



156 TRUE LOVE. 

Would that they knew what faith can work, 

What Sacraments can do, 
What simple love is like, on fire 

In hearts absolved and true ! 

They cannot tell how Jesus oft 

His secret thirst will slake 
On those strange freedoms childlike hearts 

Are taught by God to take. 

Poor souls ! they know not how to love ; 

They feel not Jesus near ; 
And they who know not how to love 

Still less know how to fear. 

The humbhng of the Incarnate Word 
They have not faith to face ; 

And how shall they who-have not faith 
Attain love's better grace ? 

The awe that lies too deep for words, 
Too deep for solemn looks, — 

It finds no way into the face, 
No written vent in books. 

They would not speak in measured tones. 
If love had in them wrought 

Until their spirits had been hushed 
In reverential thouofht. 



TRUE LOVE. 157 

They would have smiled in harmless ways 

To ease their fevered heart, 
And learned with other simple souls 

To play love's crafty part. 

They would have run away from God 

For their own vileness' sake, 
And feared lest some interior light 

From tell-tale eyes should break. 

They know not how the outward smile 

The inward awe can prove ; 
They fathom not the creature's fear 

Of Uncreated Love. 

The majesty of God ne'er broke 

On them like fire at night. 
Flooding their stricken souls, while they 
. Lay trembling in the light. 

They love not ; for they have not kissed 

The Saviour's outer hem : 
They fear not ; for the Living God 

Is yet unknown to them. 



158 SELF-LOVE. 

SELF-LOVE. 

" Christ did not please Himself." — Romans, xv, 3. 

Oh I could go through all life's troubles sing- 
ing, 

Turning earth's night to day, 
If self were not so fast around me, clinging 

To all I do or say. 

My very thoughts are selfish, always building 

Mean castles in the air ; 
I use my love of others for a gilding 

To make myself look fair. 

I fancy all the world engrossed with judging 

My merit or my blame ; 
Its warmest praise seems an ungracious grudg- 
ing. 

Of praise which I might claim. 

In youth or age, by city, wood, or mountain, 

Self is forgotten never ; 
Where'er we tread, it gushes like a fountain. 

And its waters flow for ever. 

Alas ! no speed in life can snatch us wholly 

Out of self's hateful sight ; 
And it keeps step, whene'er we travel slowly, 

And sleeps with us at night. 



SELF-LOVE. 159 

No grief's sharp knife, no pain's most cruel 
sawing 
Self and the soul can sever : 
The surface, that in joy sometimes seems 
thawing, 
Soon freezes worse than ever. 

Thus we are never men, self's wretched 
swathing 
Not letting virtue swell ; 
Thus is our whole life numbed, for ever 
bathing 
Within this frozen well. 

O miserable omnipresence, stretching 

Over all time and space, 
How have I run from thee, yet found thee 
reaching 

The goal in every race. 

Inevitable self! vile imitation 

Of universal light. — 
Within our hearts a dreadful usurpation 

Of God's exclusive right ! 

The opiate balms of grace may haply still 
thee, 

Deep in my nature lying ; 
For I may hardly hope, alas ! to kill thee, 

Save by the act of dying. 



l6o HARSH JUDGMENTS. 

O Lord ! that I could waste my life for others, 

With no ends of my own, 
That I could pour myself into my brothers, 

And live for them alone ! 

Such was the life Thou livedst ; self abjuring. 

Thine own pains never easing. 
Our burdens bearirvg, our just doom enduring, 

A life without self-pleasing ! 



HARSH JUDGMENTS. 

O God ! whose thoughts are brightest light. 

Whose love always runs clear, 
To whose kind wisdom sinning souls 

Amidst their sins are dear ! 

Sweeten my bitter-thoughted heart 

With charity Hke Thine, 
Till self shall be the only spot 

On earth which does not shine. 

Hardheartedness dwells not with souls 
Round whom Thine arms are drawn ; 

And dark thoughts fade away in grace, 
Like cloud-spots in the dawn. 



HARSH JUDGMENTS. 1 1 

I often see in my own thoughts, 
When they lie nearest Thee, 

That the worst men I ever knew 
Were better men than me. 

And of all truths no other, truth 

So true as this one seems ; 
While others' faults, that plainest were, 

Grow indistinct as dreams. 

All men look good except ourselves, 
All but ourselves are great ; 

The rays, that make our sins so clear, 
Their faults obliterate. 

Things, that appeared undoubted sins. 

Wear little crowns of light ; 
Their dark, remaining darkness still, 

Shames and outshines our bright. 

Time was, when I believed that wrong. 

In others to detect, 
Was part of genius, and a gift 

To cherish, not reject. 

Now better taught by Thee, O Lord ! 

This truth dawns on my mind, — 
The best effect of heavenly light 

Is earth's false eyes to bhnd. 
11 



1 62 HARSH JUDGMENTS. 

Thou art the Unapproached, whose height 

Enables Thee to stoop, 
Whose holiness bends undefiled 

To handle hearts that droop. 

He, whom no praise can reach, is aye 
Men's least attempts approving; 

Whom justice makes all-merciful, 
Omniscience makes all-loving. 

How Thou canst think so well of us, 

Yet be the God Thou art, 
Is darkness to my intellect, 

But sunshine to my heart. 

Yet habits linger in the soul ; 

More grace, O Lord ! more grace ! 
More sweetness from Thy loving Heart, 

More sunshine from Thy Face ! 

When we ourselves least kindly are. 

We deem the world unkind ; 
Dark hearts, in flowers where honey lies. 

Only the poison find. 

We paint from self the evil things 

We think that others are ; 
While to the self-despising soul 

All things but self are fair. 



HARSH JUDGMENTS. 1 63 

Yes, they have caught the way of God, 

To whom self Has displayed 
In such clear vision as to cast 

O'er others' faults a shade. 

A bright horizon out at sea 

Obscures the distant ships ; 
Rough hearts look smooth and beautiful 

In charity's eclipse. 

L»ve's changeful mood our neighbour's faults 

O'erwhelms with burning ray, 
And in excess of splendour hides 

What is not burned away. 

Again, with truth Hke God's, it shades 

Harsh things with untrue hght. 
Like moons that make a fairy-land 

Of fallow fields at night. 

Then mercy. Lord ! more mercy still ! 

Make me all light within, 
Self -hating and compassionate, 

And bHnd to others' sin. 

I need Thy mercy for my sin ; 

But more than this I need, — 
Thy mercy's likeness in my soul 

For others' sin to bleed. 



164 DISTRACTIONS IN PRAYER. 

'Tis not enough to weep my sins ; 

'Tis but one step to heaven : 
When I am kind to others, then 

I know myself forgiven. 

Would that my soul might be a world 

Of golden ether bright, 
A heaven where other souls might float. 

Like all Thy worlds, in light. 

All bitterness is from ourselves, 
All sweetness is from Thee ; 

Sweet God ! for evermore be Thou 
Fountain and fire in me ! 



DISTRACTIONS IN PRAYER. 

Ah dearest Lord ! I cannot pray. 

My fancy is not free ; 
Unmannerly distractions come. 

And force my thoughts from Thee. 

The world that looks so dull all day 
Glows bright on me at prayer. 

And plans that asJc no thought but then 
Wake up and meet me there. 



DISTRACTIONS IN PRAYER. 1 65 

All nature one full fountain seems 

Of dreamy sight and sound, 
Which, when I kneel, breaks up its deeps, 

And makes a deluge round. 

Old voices murmur in my ear, 

New hopes start into life. 
And past and future gaily blend 

In one bewitching strife. 

My very flesh has restless fits ; 

My changeful limbs conspire 
With all these phantoms of the mind 

My inner self to tire. 

I cannot pray; yet, Lord! Thou knowst 

The pain it is to me 
To have my vainly struggling thoughts 

Thus torn away from Thee. 

Sweet Jesus! teach me how to prize 

These tedious hours when I, 
Foolish and mute before Thy Face, 

In helpless worship lie. 

Prayer was not meant for luxury. 

Or selfish pastime sweet; 
It is the prostrate creature's place 

At his Creator's Feet. 



1 66 DISTRACTIONS IN PRAYER, 

Had I, dear Lord ! no pleasure found 

But in the thought of Thee, 
Prayer would have come unsought, and been 

A truer liberty. 

Yet Thou art oft most present, Lord ! 

In weak distracted prayer : 
A sinner out of heart with self 

Most often finds Thee there. 

For prayer that humbles sets the soul 

From all illusions free. 
And teaches it how utterly, 

Dear Lord! it hangs on Thee. 

The heart, that on self-sacrifice 

Is covetously bent, 
Will bless Thy chastening hand that makes 

Its prayer its punishment. 

My Saviour! why should I complain 

And why fear aught but sin ? 
Distractions are but outward things ; 

Thy peace dwells far within. 

These surface-troubles come and go. 

Like rufflings of the sea; 
The deeper depth is out of reach 

To all, my God, but Thee. 



SlVEETNESS IiV fiRAVMR. 167 



SWEETNESS IN PRAYER. 

Why dost thou beat so quick, my heart ? 

Why struggle in thy cage ? 
What shall I do for thee, poor heart ! 

Thy throbbing heat to swage ? 
What spell is this come over thee, 

My soul ! what sweet surprise ? 
And wherefore these unbidden tears 

That start into mine eyes ? 
How great, how good does God appear. 

How dear our holy faith. 
How tasteless life's best joys have grown,* 

How I could welcome death ! 

Thy sweetness hath betrayed Thee, Lord! 

Dear Spirit ! it is Thou ; 
Deeper and deeper in my heart 

I feel Thee nestling now. 

Whence Thou hast come I need not ask ; 

But, dear and gentle. Dove ! 
Oh wherefore hast Thou lit on one 

That so repays Thy love ? 

Would that Thou mightest stay with me, 

Or else that I might die 
While heart and soul are still subdued 

With Thy sweet mastery. 



1 68 DRYNESS IN PRAYER. 

Thy home is with the humble, Lord ! 

The simple are Thy rest ; 
Thy lodging is in child-like hearts ; 

Thou makest there Thy nest. 

Dear Comforter! Eternal Love ! 

If Thou wilt stay with me, 
Of lowly thoughts and simple ways 

I'll build a nest for Thee. 

My heart, sweet Dove ! I'll lend to Thee 

To mourn with at Thy will ; 
My tongue shall be Thy lute to try 

On sinners' souls Thy skill. 

. How silver-hke Thy plumage is, 
Thy voice how grave, how gay ! 
Ah me ! how I shall miss Thee, Lord ! 
Then promise me to stay. 

Who made this beating heart of mine. 
But Thou, my heavenly Guest ? 

Let no one have it then but Thee, 
And let it be Thy nest. 

DRYNESS IN PRAYER. 
Oh for the happy days gone by, 

When love ran smooth and free, 
Days when my spirit so enjoyed 

More than earth's liberty ! 



DRYNESS IN PRAYER. Ib( 

Oh for the times when on my heart 

Long prayer had never palled, 
Times when the ready thought of God 

Would come when it was called ! 

Then when I knelt to meditate, 
Sweet thoughts came o'er my soul. 

Countless and bright and beautiful, 
Beyond my own control. 

What can have locked those fountains up ? 

Those visions what hath stayed ? 
What sudden act hath thus transformed 

My sunshine into shade ? 

This freezing heart, O Lord ! this will 

Dry as the desert sand, 
Good thoughts that will not come, bad thoughts 

That come without command, — 

A faith that seems not faith, a hope 

That cares not for its aim, 
A love that none the hotter grows 

At Thy most blessed Name, — 

The weariness of prayer, the mist 

O'er conscience overspread. 
The chill repugnance to frequent 

The feast of angels' Bread, — 



:70 DRYNESS IN PRAYEk. 

If this dear change be Thine, O Lord ! 

If it be Thy sweet will, 
Spare not, but to the very brim 

The bitter chalice fill. 

But if it hath been sin of mine. 

Then show that sin to me. 
Not to get back the sweetness lost, 

But to make peace with Thee. 

One thing alone, dear Lord ! I dread ;— 

To have a secret spot 
That separates my soul from Thee, 

And yet to know it not. 

For when the tide of graces set 

So full upon my heart, 
I know, dear Lord ! how faithlessly 

I did my little part. 

I know how well my heart hath earned 

A chastisement like this. 
In trifling many a grace away 

In self-complacent bliss. 

But if this weariness hath come 

A present from on high. 
Teach me to find the hidden wealth 

That in its depths may lie. 



THE PAIN OP LOVE. 17I 

So in this darkness I may learn 

To tremble and adore, 
To sound my own vile nothingness, 

And thus to love Thee more, — 

To love Thee, and yet not to think 

That I can love so much, — 
To have Thee with me. Lord ! all day, 

Yet not to feel Thy touch. 

If I have served Thee, Lord ! for hire. 
Hire which Thy beauty showed. 

Can I not serve Thee now for nought. 
And only as my God ? 

Thrice blessed be this darkness then. 

This deep in which I He, 
And blessed be all things that teach 

God's dear Supremacy ! 



THE PAIN OF LOVE. 

Jesus ! why dost Thou love me so ? 

What hast Thou seen in me 
To make my happiness so great, 

So dear a joy to Thee ? 



[72 THE PAIN OF LOVE. 

Wert Thou not God, I then might think 

Thou hadst no eye to read 
The badness of that selfish heart, 

For which Thine own did bleed. 

But Thou art God, and knowest all ; 

Dear Lord ! Thou knowest me ; 
And yet Thy knowledge hinders not 

Thy love's sweet liberty. 

Ah, how Thy grace hath wooed my soul 

With persevering wiles ! 
Now give me tears to weep ; for tears 

Are deeper joy than smiles. 

Each proof renewed of Thy great love 
Humbles me more and more. 

And brings to light forgotten sins. 
And lays them at my door. 

The more I love Thee, Lord ! the more 

I hate my own cold heart ; 
The more Thou woundest me with love, 

The more I feel the smart. 

What shall I do, then, dearest Lord ! 

Say, shall I fly from Thee, 
And hide my poor unloving self 

Where Thou canst never see ? 



LOIV SPIRITS. 173 

Or shall I pray that Thy dear love 
. To me might not be given ? 
Ah, no ! love must be pain on earth, 
If it be bliss in heaven. 



LOW SPIRITS. 

Fever, and fret, and aimless stir, 

And disappointed strife, 
All chafing unsuccessful things. 

Make up the sum of life. 

Love adds anxiety to toil, 
And sameness doubles cares, 

While one unbroken chain of work 
The flagging temper wears. 

The light and air are dulled with smoke 
The streets resound with noise ; 

And the soul sinks to see its peers 
Chasing their joyless joys. 

Voices are round me ; smiles are near ; 

Kind welcomes to be had ; 
And yet my spirit is alone, 

Fretful, outworn, and sad. 

A weary actor, I would fain 

Be quit of my long part ; 
The burden of unquiet life 

Lies heavy on my heart. 



174 ^OlV SPIRITS. 

Sweet thought of God ! now do thy work, 

As thou hast done before ; 
Wake up, and tears will wake with thee, 

And the dull mood be o'er. 

The very thinkingof the thought. 
Without or praise or prayer. 

Gives light to know, and life to do, 
And marvellous strength to bear. 

Oh there is music in that thought 

Unto a heart unstrung. 
Like sweet bells at the evening-time 

Most musically rung. 

'Tis not His justice or His power. 

Beauty or blest abode, 
But the mere unexpanded thought 

Of the Eternal God. 

It is not of His wondrous works. 

Nor even that He is ; 
Words fail it, but it is a thought 

Which by itself is bliss. 

Sweet thought ! he closer to my heart, 

That I may feel thee near. 
As one who for his weapon feels 

In some nocturnal fear. 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 1 75 

Mostly in hours of gloom thou com'st, 
When sadness makes us lowly, 

As though thou wert the echo sweet 
Of humble melancholy. 

I bless Thee, Lord ! for this kind check 

To spirits over free. 
And for all things that make me feci 

More helpless need of Thee. 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

Once in the simple thought of God, 

My old repose I sought. 
But lo ! the well-known peace was now 

No longer in that thought. 

My spirit fluttered here and there, 
Beset with nameless fears ; 

My eyes with very dryness burned. 
While my heart shed inward tears. 

I was as one who cannot sleep. 

Upon a bed of pain, 
Too restless to be still and bear, 

Too peevish to complain. 



176 LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 

Then suddenly a silent gloom 
Like a web was round me spun, 

As grateful as a sudden shade 
After a scorching sun. 

The darkness grew, and, as it grew 
More dark, it grew more still ; 

And something dawned, less in my mind 
Than deep within my will. 

.In that dark dawn, confused yet plain, 

I thought that I could see. 
In radiant indistinctness clad, 

The Holy Trinity. 

My soul lay at the door of death. 
Anguish and dread within ; 

For all I had and all I was 
Seemed nothing then but sin. 

How I could speak I cannot tell. 

How I could dare to pray 
Seemed wonderful ; and yet my heart 

To Jesus dared to say : — 

Shew me the Father's Face, O Lord, 
This was my venturous cry. 

And close before me, as I prayed, 
Methought Some One passed by. 



LIGHT IN DARKNESS. 1 77 

And yet He was not One but Three, 

Oh, how fatherly He seemed ! 
A mercy half so merciful 

I never could have dreamed. 

The space of one swift lightning's flash 

Was the Majesty outspread ; 
Then the angels' songs the silence broke, 

And the glorious darkness fled. 

Deep in Thine own immensity 

Thyself Thou hidest, Lord ! 
There always speaking to Thyself 

Thine Uncreated Word. 

Thy Wisdom, like a sea on fire. 

Is one with Thee in bliss ; 
His unborn loveliness is Thine, 

Thine unborn glory His. 

Thou and Thy Word perforce must breathe 

One equal Breath of love, 
A Breath that is being ever breathed. 

One coeternal Dove. 

Yet Father, Son, and Holy Ghos^ 

Into one Father run, 
A Father in Their Unity, 

A Trinity in One. 
12 



ryS DIVINE FAVOURS. 

Father ! all we that toil on earth 
One day at rest shall be ; — 

Thou art our haven and our home, 
O dearest Trinity ! 



DIVINE FAVOURS. 

Is this returning life that thrills 
So sensibly in all my veins ? 
Can this be heavenly joy that fills 
My soul with such mysterious pains ? 

I see but indistinctly yet 

Forms growing like to what I knew ; 

One sun is rising, one is set, 

But which of those two suns is true ? 

Within my soul there hath been strife ; 
I hear retreating voices rave ; 
This stirring in me must be life, 
But life on which side of the grave ? 

Blue sky, green earth, my well-known room ! 

I waken up to all the past ; 

But what a look of cheerless gloom 

That inward light o'er all hath cast ! 

O Lord ! what hast Thou done to me ? 
What marks are these my spirit bears ? 
Why didst Thou come so frighteningly, 
Why take me, Lord ! so unawares ? 



DIVINE FAVOURS. 1 79 

I felt Thy touch ; self died, — alas ! 
Only a momentary death ; 
Ah me ! how quickly Thou didst pass — 
Within the breathing of a breath ! 

No revelation did unfold 
New secrets to my quickened eye ; 
No vision on my sight unrolled 
Its hieroglyphic pageantry. 

I feel no wish to do great things, 
Nor is my weakness fortified ; 
Only, within are murmurings. 
Beginning softly to subside. 

But in that momentary sleep 
One work within me hath been done ; 
For somehow I have sunk more deep, 
Farther into my soul have gone. 

Thy touch hath made me sensitive ; 
I long to burrow out of sight ; 
My shame, selfseen, abhors to live. 
Humbled by such excess of light. 

There have been times when sense of sin 
Hath laid my spirits very low ; 
Yet this sharp light went deeper in ; 
I never yet was humbled so. 




PAET EOUiJ. 
MiQcdiancons. 



THE CREATION OF THE ANGELS. 

In pulses deep of threefold Love, 
Self-hushed and self-possessed, 

The mighty, unbeginning God 
Had lived in silent rest. 

With His own greatness all alone 

The sight of Self had been 
Beauty of beauties, joy of joys, 

Before His eye serene.' 

He lay before himself and gazed 

As ravished with the sight. 
Brooding on His own attributes 

With dread untold delight. 

No ties were on His bliss, for He 

Had neither end nor cause ; 
For His own glory 'twas enough 

That He was what He was. 



l82 THE CREATION OF THE ANGELS. 

His glory was full grown ; His light 
Had owned no dawning dim; 

His love did not outgrow Himself, 
For nought could grow in Him. 

He stirred — and yet we know not how 
Nor wherefore He should move ; 

In our poor human words, it was 
An overflow of love. 

It was the first outspoken word 
That broke that peace sublime, 

An outflow of eternal love 
Into the lap of time. 

He stirred ; and beauty all at once 
Forth from His Being broke ; 

Spirit and strength, and living life, 
Created things, awoke. 

Order and multitude and light 

In beauteous showers outstreamed; 

And realms of newly-fashioned space 
With radiant angels beamed. 

How wonderful is life in heaven 

Amid the angelic choirs. 
Where uncreated Love has crowned 

His first created fires ! 

But, see ! new marvels gather there ! 
The wisdom of the Son 



THE UNBELIEVING WORLD. 1 83 

With heaven's completest wonder ends 
The work so well besfun. 



THE UNBELIEVING WORLD. 

O Lord ! when I look o'er the wide spreading 
world, 

How lovely and yet how unhappy it seems, 
How full of realities, pure and divine, 

Yet how bent on unworshipful dreams ! 

My heart swells within me, Avith thankfullest joy 
For the faith which to me Thou hast given ; 

For in all Thine amazing abundance of gifts, 
Thou hast no better gift short of heaven. 

There was darkness in Egypt while Israel had 
sun. 
And the songs in the corn fields of Gessen 
were gay. 
And the chosen that dwelt 'mid the heathen 
moved on, 
Each threading the gloom with his own 
private day. 

Ah ! so is it now with the Church of Thy choice ; 

Her lands lie in light which to worldlings 

seems dim ; 

And each child of that Church, who must 

live in dark realms, 

Has a sun o'er his head which is only for him. 



184 THE UNBELIEVING WORLD. 

Yet it grieves me too, Lord ! that so many 
should wander, 
Should see nought before them but desolate 
night, 
That men should be walled in with darkness 
around them, 
When within and without there is nothing 
but light. 

But still more I grieve for Thy glory, O Lord ! 
That the world should be only an Egypt for 
Thee, 
That the bondsmen of error should boast of 
their chains. 
And scoff at the love that would fain set 
them free. 

But we who have light, we must make our light 
brighter, 
And thus show our love to Thee, Lord ! for 
Thy gift ; 
The faith Thou hast sent us our love can make 
greater. 
And almost to sight our believing can lift. 

Faith is sweetest of worships to Him who so 
loves 
His unbearable splendours in darkness to 
hide ; 



THE UNBELIEVING WORLD. 1 85 

And to trust to Thy word, dearest Lord ! is 
true love, 
For those prayers are most granted which 
seem most denied. 

Oh why hast Thou made then faith's field all 
so narrow, 
Nor multiplied objects for childlike belief ; 
For faith, though it is such a beautiful worship, 
Is but earth's span of heaven, too fleeting 
and brief. 

Thou hast dealt better measure to hope than 
to faith ; 
Hope can hope for no more, since it hopes, 
Lord ! for Thee ; 
Nought is lacking to love which has fastened 
on God ; 
It is love lost in love like a drop in the sea. 

But faith throws her arms around all Thou 
hast told her, 
And, able to hold as much more, can but 
grieve ; 
She could hold Thy grand Self, Lord ! if Thou 
wouldst reveal it. 
And love makes her long to have more to 
believe: - 



l86 THE OLD LABOURER. 



THE OLD LABOURER. 

What end doth he fulfil ? 

He seems without a will, 
Stupid, unhelpful, helpless, age-worn man ! 

He hath let the years pass ; 

He hath toiled, and heard Mass, 
Done what he could, and now does what he can. 

And this forsooth is all ! 

A plant or animal 
Hath a more positive work to do than he : 

Along his daily beat, 

Delighting in the heat. 
He crawls in sunshine which he does not see. 

What doth God get from him ? 

His very mind is dim. 
Too weak to love, and too obtuse to fear. 

Is there glory in his strife ? 

Is there meaning in his life ? 
Can God hold such a thing-like person dear ? 

Peace ! he is dying now ; 

No light is on his brow ; 
He makes no sign, but without sign departs. 

The poor die often so, — 

And yet they long to go. 
To take to God their over-weiehted hearts. 



THE OLD LABOURER. tS; 

Born only to endure, 

The patient passive poor 
Seem useful chiefly by their multitude ; 

For they are men who keep 

Their lives secret and deep ; 
Alas ! the poor are seldom understood. 

This labourer that is gone 

Was childless and alone, 
And homeless as his Saviour was before him; 

He told in no man's ear 

His longing, love, or fear, [him. 

Nor what he thought of life as it passed o'er 

He had so long been old, 

His heart was close and cold ; 
He had no love to take, no love to give : 

Men almost wished him dead ; 

'Twas best for him, they said ; 
'Twas such a weary sight to see him live. 

He walked with painful stoop. 

As if life made him droop. 
And care had fastened fetters round his feet; 

He saw no bright blue sky, 

Except what met his eye 
Reflected from the rain-pools in the street. 

To whom was he of good ? 
He slept and he took food, 



155 THE OLD LABOURER. 

He used the earth and air, and kindled fire : 

He bore to take relief, 

Less as a right than grief ; — 
To what might such a soul as his aspire ? 

His inexpressive eye 

Peered round him vacantly, 
As if whate'er he did he would be chidden ; 

He seemed a mere growth of earth ; 

Yet even he had mirth, 
As the great angels have, untold and hidden. 

Alway his downcast eye 

Was laughing silently. 
As if he found some jubilee in thinking ; 

For his one thought was God, 

In that one thought he abode. 
For ever in that thought more deeply sinking.- 

Thus did he live his life, 

A kind of passive strife, 
Upon the God within his heart relying ; 

Men left him all alone, 

Because he was unknown, [ing. 

But he heard the angels sing when he was dy- 

God judges by a light, 

Which baffles mortal sight, [won : 

And the useless-seeming man the crown hath 

In His vast world above, 

A world of broader love, 
God hath some grand employment for His son. 



MUSIC. 

That music breathes all through my spirit, 
As the breezes blow through a tree ; 

And my soul gives light as it quivers, 
Like moons on a tremulous sea. 

New passions are wakened within me, 
New passions that have not a name ; 

Dim truths that I knew but as phantoms 
Stand up clear and bright in the flame. 

And my soul is possessed with yearnings 
Which make my life broaden and swell ; 

And I hear strange things that are soundless, 
And I see the invisible. 

Oh silence that clarion in mercy, — 

For it carries my soul away ; 
And it whirls my thoughts out beyond me, 

Like the leaves on an autumn day. 

O exquisite tyranny ! silence, — 
My soul sHps from under my hand. 

And as if by instinct is fleeing 
To a dread unvisited land. 

Is it sound, or fragrance, or vision ? 

Vocal light wavering down from above ? 
Past prayer and past praise I am floating 

Down the rapids of speechless love. 



190 MUSIC. 

I Strove, but the sweet sounds have conquered : 

Within me the Past is awake ; 
The Present is grandly transfigured ; 

The Future is clear as day-break. 

Now Past, Present, Future have mingled 

A new sort of Present to make ; 
And my life is all disembodied, 

Without time, without space, without break. 

But my soul seems floating for ever 

In an orb of ravishing sounds, 
Through faint-falling echoes of heavens 

'Mid beautiful earths without bounds. 

Now sighing, as zephyrs in summer, 
The concords glide in like a stream. 

With a sound that is almost a silence, 
Or the soundless sounds in a dream. 

Then oft, when the music is faintest. 
My soul has a storm in its bowers, 

Like the thunder among the mountains, 
Like the wind in the abbey towers. 

There are sounds, like flakes of snow falHng 
In their silent and eddying rings ; 

We tremble, — they touch us so lightly. 
Like the feathers from angels' wings. 



:9i 



There are pauses of marvellous silence, 
That are full of significant sound, 

Like music echoing music 

Under water or under ground. 

That clarion again ! through what valleys 

Of deep inward life did it roll, 
Ere it blew that astonishing trumpet 

Right down in the caves of my soul ? 

My mind is bewildered with echoes, — ■ 
Not all from the sweet sounds without : 

But spirits are answering spirits 
In a beautiful muffled shout. 

Oh cease then, wild Horns ! I am fainting ; 

If ye wail so, Thy heart will break ; 
Some one speaks to me in your speaking 

In a language I cannot speak. 

Though the sounds ye make are all foreign. 
How native, how household they are ; 

The tones of old homes mixed with heaven. 
The dead and the angels, speak there. 

Dear voices that long have been silenced. 
Come clear from their peaceable land. 

Come toned with unspeakable sweetness 
From the Presence in which they stand. 



192 . MUSIC. 

Or is music the inarticulate 

Speech of tlie angels on earth ? 
Or the voice of the Undiscovered 

Bringing great truths to the birth ? 

O music ! thou surely art worship ; 

But thou art not like praise or prayer ; 
And words make better thanksgiving 

Than thy sweet melodies are. 

There is in thee another worship, 
An outflow of something divine ; 

For the voice of adoring silence, 
If it could be a voice, were thine. 

Thou art fugitive splendours made vocal, 
As they glanced from that shining sea, 

Where the Vision is visible music, 
Making music of spirits who see. 

Thou, Lord ! art the Father of music ; 

Sweet sounds are a whisper from Thee ; 
Thou hast made Thy creation all anthems, 

Though it singeth them silently. 

But I guess by the stir of this music 
What raptures in heaven can be. 

Where the sound is Thy marvellous stillness, 
And the music is light out of Thee. 



THE STARRY SKIES. 



THE STARRY SKIES. 

The starry skies, they rest my soul, 

Its chains of care unbind, 
And with the dew of cooling thoughts 

Refresh my sultry mind. 

And, like a bird amidst the boughs, 

I rest, and sing, and rest, 
Among those bright dissevered worlds, 

As safe as in a nest. 

And oft I think the starry sprays 
Swing with me where I light. 

While brighter branches lure me o'er 
New gulfs of purple night. 

Yes, something draws me upward there 
As morning draws the lark; 

Only my spell, whate'er it is, 
Works better in the dark. 

It is as if a home was there, 
To which my soul was turning, 

A home not seen, but nightly proved 
By a mysterious yearning. 

It seems as if no actual space 

Could hold it in its bond ; 
Thought climbs its highest, still it is 

Always beyond, beyond. 
13 



193 



194 'I'HE STARRY SKIES. 

Earth never feels like home, though fresh 

And full its tide of mirth ; 
No glorious change we can conceive 

Would make a home of earth. 

But God alone can be a home ; 

And His sweet Vision hes 
Somewhere in that soft gloom concealed, 

Beyond the starry skies. 

So, as if waiting for a voice, 

Nightly I gaze and sigh, 
While the stars look at me silently 

Out of their silent sky. 

How have I erred ! God is my home, 

And God Himself is here ; 
Why have I looked so far for Him 

Who is nowhere but near ? 

Oh not in distant starry skies, 

In vastness not abroad, 
But everywhere in His whole Self 

Abides the whole of God. 

In golden presence not diffused. 

Not in vague fields of bliss, 
But whole in every present point 

The Godhead simply is. 



THE STARRY SKIES. 195 

Down in earth's duskiest vales, where'er 

My pilgrimage may be, 
Thou Lord ! wilt be a ready home 

Always at hand for me. 

I spake : but God was nowhere seen ; 

Was His love too tired to wait ? 
Ah no ! my own unsimple love 

Hath often made me late. 

How often things already won 

It urges me to win, 
How often makes me look outside 

For that which is within ! 

Our souls go too much out of self 

Into ways dark and dim : 
'Tis rather God who seeks for us, 

Than we who seek for Him. 

Yet surely through my tears I saw 

God softly drawing near ; 
How came He without sight or sound 

So soon to disappear ? 

God was not gone : but He so longed 

His sweetness to impart, 
He too was seeking for a home, 

And found it in my heart. 



196 THE SORROWFUL WORLD. 

Twice had I erred : a distant God 
Was what I could not bear ; 

Sorrows and cares were at my side ; 
I longed to have Him there. 

But God is never so far off 

As even to be near ; 
He is within : our spirit is 

The home he holds most dear. 

To think of Him as by our side 

Is almost as untrue, 
As to remove His throne beyond 

Those skies of starry blue. 

So all the while I thought myself 
Homeless, forlorn, and weary, 

Missing my joy, I walked the earth 
Myself God's sanctuary. 



THE SORROWFUL WORLD. 

I heard the wild beasts in the woods complain ; 
Some slept, while others wakened to sustain 
Through night and day the sad monotonous 

round, 
Half savage and half pitiful the sound. 



THE SORROWFUL WORLD. I97 

The outcry rose to God through all the air, 
The worship of distress, an animal prayer, 
Loud vehement pleadings, not unlike to those 
Job uttered in his agony of woes. 

The very pauses, when they came, were rife 
With sickening sounds of too successful strife. 
As, when the clash of battle dies away, 
The groans of night succeed the shrieks of 
day. 

Man's scent the untamed creatures scarce can 

bear. 
As if his tainted blood defiled the air ; 
In the vast woods they fret as in a cage, 
Or fly in fear, or gnash their teeth with rage. 

The beasts of burden linger on their way. 
Like slaves who will not speak when they 

obey; 
Their faces, when their looks to us they raise, 
With something of reproachful patience gaze. 

All creatures round us seem to disapprove ; 
Their eyes discomfort us with lack of love ; 
Our very rights, with signs like these alloyed, 
Not without sad misgivings are enjoyed. 

Earth seems to make a sound in places lone, 
Sleeps through the day, but wakes at night to 
moan. 



igo THE SORROWFUL WORLD. 

Shunning our confidence, as if we were 
A guilty burden it could hardly bear. 

The winds can never sing but they must wail , 
Waters lift up sad voices in the vale ; 
One mountain-hollow to another calls 
With broken cries of plaining waterfalls. 

Silence itself is but a heaviness, 
As if the earth were fainting in distress. 
Like one who wakes at night in panic fears. 
And nought but his own beating pulses hears. 

Inanimate things can rise into despair ; 
And, when the thunders bellow in the air, 
Amid the mountains, earth sends forth a cry, 
Like dying monsters in their agony. 

The sea, unmated creature, tired and lone, 
Makes on its desolate sands eternal moan : 
Lakes on the calmest days are ever throbbing 
Upon their pebbly shores with petulant sob- 
bing. 

O'er the white waste, cold grimly overawes 
And hushes Mfe beneath its merciless laws ; 
Invisible heat drops down from tropic skies, 
And o'er the land, hke an oppression, lies. 



THE SORROWFUL WORLD. 199 

The clouds in heaven their placid motions. 

borrow 
From the funereal tread of men in sorrow; 
Or, when they scud across the stormy day, 
Mimic the flight of hosts in disarray. 

Mostly men's many-featured faces wear 
Looks of fixed gloom, or else of restless care ; 
The very babes, that in their cradles lie, 
Out of the depths of unknown troubles cry. 

Labor itself is but a sorrowful song, 
The protest of the weak against the strong ; 
Over rough waters, and in obstinate fields, 
And from dank mines, the same sad sound it 
yields. 

O God ! the fountain of perennial gladness ! 
Thy wdiole creation overflows with sadness ; 
Sights, sounds, are full of sorrow and alarm ; 
Even sweet scents have but a pensive charm. 

Doth earth send nothing up to Thee but 

moans ? 
Father ! canst Thou find melody in groans ? 
Oh can it be, that Thou, the God of bliss, 
Canst feed Thy glory on a world like this ? 

Ah me ! that sin should have such chemic 

power 
To turn to dross the gold of nature's dower, 



And straightway, of its single self, unbind 
The eternal visio'n of Thy jubilant Mind ! 

Alas ! of all this sorrow there is need ; 
For us earth weeps, for us the creatures bleed 
Thou art content, if all this woe imparts 
The sense of exile to repentant hearts. 

Yes ! it is well for us : from these alarms, 
Like children scared, we fly into Thine arms ; 
And pressing sorrows put our pride to rout 
With a swift faith which has not time to doubt. 

We cannot herd in peace with wild beasts 

rude ; 
We dare not live in nature's solitude ; 
In how few eyes of men can we behold 
Enough of love to make us calm and bold ? 

Oh it is well for us : with angry glance 
Life glares at us, or looks at us askance : 
Seek where we will,— Father ! we see it now,— 
None love us, trust us, welcome us^ but Thou' 



AUTUMN. 
Autumn once more begins to teach ; 
Sere leaves their annual sermon preach ; 
And with the southward-slipping sun 
Another stage of life is done. 



AUTUMN. 2C 

The day is of a paler hue, 

The night is of a darker blue, 

Just as it was a year ago ; 

For time runs fast, but grace is slow ! 

Life gHdes away in many a bend, 

In chapters which begin and end ; 

Each has its trial, each its grace. 

Each in life's whole its proper place. 

Life has its joinings and its breaks, 

But each transition swiftly takes 

Us nearer to or further from 

The threshold of our heavenly home. 

Years pass away ; new crosses come ; 

Past sorrow is a sort of home, 

An exile's home, and only lent 

For needful rest in banishment. 

It narrows life, and walls it in, 

And shuts the door on many a sin ; 

'Tis almost like a calm fireside. 

Where humbled hearts are fain to bide. 

Thou comest. Autumn, to unlade 

Thy wealthy freight of summer shade, 

Still sorrowful as in past years, 

Yet mild and sunny in thy tears. 

Ripening and hardening all thy growth 

Of soHd wood, yet nothing loth 

To waste upon the frolic breeze 

Thy leaves, like flights of golden bees. 



ioi 



A vtumn: 



Have I laid by from summer hours 

Ripe fruits as well as leaves and flowers ? 

Hath my past year a growth to harden, 

As well as fewer sins to pardon ? 

Is God in all things more and more 

A king within me than before ? 

I know not, yet one change hath come, — 

The world feels less and less a home. 

My soul appears, as I get old, 
More prompt in act, in prayer less cold ; 
Crosses, from use, more lightly press ; 
Mirth is more purely weariness ; 
With less to quarrel with in life, 
I grow less patient with its strife ; 
I wish more simply Lord to be, 
Ailing or well, always with Thee ! 



^^ 





PAET FIFTH. 



THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD. 

Oh it is sweet to think, 

Of those that are departed, 
While murmured Aves sink 

To silence tender-hearted. 
While teai-s that have no pain 

Are tranquilly distilling, 
And the dead live again 

In hearts that love is filling. 



204 THE MEMORY OF THE DEAL. 

Yet not as in the days 

Of earthly ties we love them ; 
For they are touched with rays 

From light that is above them : 
Another sweetness shines 

Around their well-known features ; 
God with His glory signs 

His dearly ransomed creatures. 

Yes, they are more our own, 

Since now they are God's only ; 
And each one that has gone 

Has left our heart less lonely. 
He mourns not seasons fled, 

Who now in Him possesses 
Treasures of many dead 

In their dear Lord's caresses. 

Dear dead ! they have become 

Like guardian angels to us ; 
And distant heaven like home, 

Through them begins to woo us ; 
Love, that was earthly, wings 

Its flight to holier places ; 
The dead are sacred things 

That multiply our graces. 

They whom we loved on earth 
Attract us now to heaven : 



THE ETERNAL YEARS. 

Who shared our grief and mirth 
Back to us now are given. 

They move with noiseless foot 
Gravely and sweetly round us, 

And their soft touch hath cut 
Full many a chain that bound us. 

O dearest dead ! to heaven 

With grudging sighs we gave you, 
To Him— be doubts forgiven ! 

Who took you there to save you :— 
Now get us grace to love 

Your memories yet more kindly. 
Pine for our homes above, 

And trust to God more bhndly. 



THE ETERNAL YEARS. 

How shalt thou bear the Cross that now 

So dread a weight appears ? 
Keep quietly to God, and think 

Upon the Eternal Years. 

Austerity is little help, 

Although it somewhat cheers ; 
Thine oil of gladness is the thought 

Of the Eternal Years. 



2o6 THE ETERNAL YEARS. 

Set hours and written rule are good, 
Long prayer can lay our fears : 

But it is better calm for thee 
To count the Eternal Years. 

Rites are as balm unto the eyes, 
God's word unto the ears : 

But He will have thee rather brood 
Upon the Eternal Years. 

Full many things are good for souls 
In proper times and spheres ; 

Thy present good is in the thought 
Of the Eternal Years. 

Thy self-upbraiding is a snare, 
Though meekness it appears ; 

More humbhng is it far for thee, 
To face the Eternal Years. 

Brave quiet is the thing for thee, 
Chiding thy scrupulous fears ; 

Learn to be real, from the thought 
Of the Eternal Years. 

Bear gently, suffer like a child, 

Nor be ashamed of tears ; 
Kiss the sweet Cross, and in thy heart 

Sing of the Eternal Years. 



THE ETERNAL YEARS. 207 

Thy Cross is quite enough for thee, 

Though Httle it appears ; 
For there is hid in it the weight 

Of the Eternal Years. 

And knowst thou not how bitterness 

An ailing spirit cheers ? 
Thy medicine is the strengthening thought 

Of the Eternal Years. 

One Cross can sanctify a soul ; 

Late saintc; and ancient ccers 
•Were what they were, because they mused 

Upon the Eternal Years. 

Pass not from flower to pretty flower ; 

Time flies, and judgment nears ; 
Go ! make thy honey from the thought 

Of the Eternal Years. 

Death will have rainbows round it, seen 
Through calm contrition's tears. 

If tranquil hope but trims her lamp 
At the Eternal Years. 

Keep unconstrain'dly in this thought, 
Thy loves, hopes, smiles, and tears ; 

Such prison-house thine heart will make 
Free of the Eternal Years. 



2o8 



AFTER A DEATH. 



A single practice long sustained 

A soul to God endears : 
This must be thine — to weigh the thought 

Of the Eternal Years. 

He practises all virtue well, 

Who his own Cross reveres, 
And lives in the familiar thought 

Of the Eternal Years. 



AFTER A DEATH. 

The grief that was delayed so long, 

O Lord ! hath come at last ; 
Blest be Thy Name for present pain. 

And for the weary past ! 

Yet, Father ! I have looked so long 

Upon the coming grief, 
That what should grieve my heart the most 

Seems almost like relief. 



Alas ! then, did I love the dead 
As well as he loved me ? 

Or have I sought myself alone 
Rather than him, or Thee ? 

To fear is harder than to weep, 
To watch than to endure ; 



AFTER A DEATH. 



!09 



The hardest of all griefs to bear 
Is a grief that is not sure. 

As on a watchtower did I stand, 
Like one that looks in fear, 

And sees an overwhelming host 
O'er hill and dale draw near. 

The bitterness each day brought forth 
Was more than I could bear, 

And hope's uncertainty was worse 
Than positive despair. 

I grew more unprepared for grief 
Which had so long been stayed ; 

The blow seemed more impossible 
The more it was delayed. 

Yes ! the most sudden of our griefs 
Are those which travel slow ; 

The longer warning that it gives 
The deeper is the woe. 

To look a sorrow in the face 

False magnitude imparts ; 
All sorrows look immensely large 

Unto our little hearts. 

But to look long upon a grief, 
Which is so long in sight, 
14 



' AFTER A DEATH. 

Unmans a heart more terribly 
Than a sudden death at night. 

A swift and unexpected blow, 

If hard to bear, is brief ; 
But oh ! it is less sudden far 

Than a quiet creeping grief. 

Least griefs are more than we can bear, 
Each worse than those before ; 

Our own griefs always greater griefs 
Than those our fathers bore. 

The griefs we have to bear alone. 
The griefs that we can share. 

Our single griefs, our crowded griefs,— 
Which are the worst to bear ? 

Yet all are less than our deserts ; 

Within our grace they lie ; 
The sorrows we exaggerate 

We cannot sanctify. 

Dear Lord ! in all our loneliest pains 
Thou hast the largest share, 

And that which is unbearable 
'Tis Thine, not ours, to bear. 

How merciful Thine anger is. 
How tender it can be, 



THE PILGRIMS OF THE NIGHT. 211 

How wonderful all sorrows are 
Which come direct from Thee ! 

Years fly, O Lord ! and every year 

More desolate I grow ; 
My world of friends thins round me fast, i|il|| 

Love after love lies low. 

There are fresh gaps around the hearth, 

Old places left unfilled. 
And young lives quenched before the old. 

And the love of old hearts chilled : 

Dear voices and dear faces missed, 

Sweet households overthrown, 
And what is left more sad to see 

Than the sight of what has gone. 

All this is to be sanctified. 

This rupture with the past ; 
For thus we die before our deaths, * 

And so die well at last. 



THE PILGRIMS OF THE NIGHT. 

Hark ! hark ! my soul ! angelic songs are swell- 
ing 
O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave- 
beat shore ; 



212 THE PILGRIMS OF THE NIGHT. 

How sweet the truth those blessed strains are 
telling 
Of that new life when sin shall be no more ! 

Chorus. 

Angels of Jesus, 

Angels of light, 
Singing to welcome 
Th^ pilgrims of the night ! 

Darker than night life's shadows fall around 

us, 

And, hke benighted men. we miss our mark; 

God hides Himself, and grace hath scarcely 

found us, 

Ere death finds out his victims in the dark. 

Onward we go, for still we hear them singing, 
Come, weary souls ! for Jesus bids you 
come ! 
And through the dark, its echoes sweetly ring- 
ing, 
The music of the Gospel leads us home. 

Far, far away, like bells at evening pealing, 

The voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea. 
And laden souls, by thousands meekly steal- 
ing, 
Kind Shepherd! turn their weary steps to 
Thee. 



THE PILGRIMS OF THE NIGHT. 213 

Rest comes at length ; though life be long and 
dreary, 
The day must dawn, and darksome night be 
past ; 
All journeys end in welcomes to the weary, 
And heaven, the heart's true home, will come 
at last. 

Cheer up, my soul ! faith's moonbeams softly 
ghsten 
Upon the breast of life's most troubled sea ; 
And it will cheer thy drooping heart to listen 
To those brave songs which angels ijiean 
for thee. 

Angels ! sing on, your faithful watches keei> 
ing. 
Sing us sweet fragments of the songs above ; 
While we toil on, and soothe ourselves with 
weeping. 
Till life's- long night shall break in endless 
love. 

Chortis. 

Angels of Jesus, 

Angels of light. 
Singing to welcome 

The pilgrims of the night ! 



214 WISHES ABOUT DEATH. 



WISHES ABOUT DEATH. 

I wish to have no wishes left, 

But to leave all to Thee ; 
And yet I wish that Thou shouldst will 

Things that I wish should be. 

And these two wills I feel within, 
When on my death I muse : 

But, Lord ! I have a death to die, 
And not a death to choose. 



Why should I choose ? for in Thy love 

Most surely I descry 
A gentler death than I myself 

Should dare to ask to die. 



But Thou wilt not disdain to hear 
What those few wishes are. 

Which I abandon to Thy love, 
And to Thy wiser care. 

Triumphant death I would not ask, 
Rather would deprecate ; 

For dying souls deceive themselves 
Soonest when most elate. 



i 



WISHES ABOUT DEATH. 21$ 

All graces I would crave to have 

Calmly absorbed in one, — 
A perfect sorrow for my sins, 

And duties left undone. 

I would the light of reason. Lord ! 

Up to the last might shine, 
That my own hands might hold my soul 

Until it passed to Thine. 

And I would pass in silence, Lord ! 

No brave words on my lips, 
Lest pride should cloud my soul, and I 

Should die in the eclipse. 

But when, and where, and by what pain, — • 

All this is one to me : 
I only long for such a death 

As most shall honour Thee. 

Long life dismays me, by the sense 
Of my own weakness scared : 

And by Thy grace a sudden death 
Need not be unprepared. 

One wish is hard to be unwished, — ■ 

That I at last might die 
Of grief for having wronged with sin 

Thy spotless Majesty. 



2l6 THE PATHS OF DEATH. 



THE PATHS OF DEATH. 

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death ! 

Like the bright slanting west, 
Thou leadest down into the glow 
Where all those heaven-bound sunsets go. 

Ever from toil to rest. 

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death ! 

Back to our own dear dead, 
Into that land which hides in tombs 
The better part of our old homes ; 

'Tis there thou mak'st our bed. 

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death ! 

Thither where sorrows cease. 
To a new life, to an old past, 
Softly and silently we haste, 

Into a land of peace. 
How pleasant are thy paths, O Death ! 

Thy new restores our lost; 
There are voices of the new times 
With the ringing of the old chimes 

Blent sweetly on thy coast. 

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death ! 

One faint for want of breath, — 
And above thy promise thou hast given: 
All, we find more than all in heaven, 

O thou truth-speaking Death ! 



THE PATHS OF DEATH. 21 'J 

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death ! 

E'en children after play- 
Lie down, without the least alarm, 
And sleep, in thy maternal arm, 

Their little life away. 

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death ! 

E'en grown-up men secure 
Better manhood, by a brave leap 
Through the chill mist of thy thin sleep, — 

Manhood that will endure. 

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death ! 

The old, the very old. 
Smile when their slumberous eye grows 

dim. 
Smile when they feel thee touch each limb. 

Their age was not less cold. 

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death! 

Ever from pain to ease ; 
Patience, that hath held on for years. 
Never unlearns her humble fears 

Of terrible disease. 

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death ! 

From sin to pleasing God ; 
For the pardoned in thy land are bright 
As innocence in robe of white, 

And walk on the same road. 



2l8 THE LENGTH OF DEATH. 

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death ! 

Straight to our Father's Home ; 
All loss were gain that gained us this, 
The sight of God, that single bliss 

Of the grand world to come. 

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death ! 

Ever from toil to rest, — 
Where a rim of sea-like splendour runs. 
Where the days bury their golden suns. 

In the dear hopeful west ! 



THE LENGTH OF DEATH. 

Sweet Saviour ! take me by the hand, 
And lead me through the gloom ; 

Oh, it seems far to the Other Land. 
And dark in the silent tomb ! 

I thought it was less hard to die, 

A straighter road to Thee, 
With at least a twilight in the sky, 

And one narrow arm of sea. 

Saviour ! what means this breadth of death, 

This space before me lying. 
These deeps where life so Hngereth, 

This difficulty of dying ? 



THE LENGTH OF DEATH. 219 

So many turns, abrupt and rude, 

Such ever-shifting grounds, 
Such a strangely-peopled solitude, 

Such strangely silent sounds ? 

Another hour ! What change of pain 

In this last act doth lie ! 
Surely to Hve life o'er again 

Were less prolix than to die. 

]Iow carefully Thou walkest. Lord! 

Canst Thou have cause to fear ? 
Who is that spirit with the sword ? 

Art Thou not Master here ? 

Whom are we trying to avoid ? 

From whom, Lord ! must we hide ? 
Oh, can the dying be decoyed. 

With his Saviour by his side ? 

Deeper ! — Dark ! Dark ! But yet I follow ; 

Tighten, dear Lord ! Thy clasp ! 
How suddenly earth seems to hollow, 

There is nothing left to grasp ! 

I cannot feel Thee ; art Thou near ? 

It is all too dark to see ; 
But let me feel Thee, Saviour dear ! 

I can go on with Thee. 



220 THE LENGTH OF DEATH. 

What speed ! How icy-smooth these stones ! 

Oh, might we make less haste ? 
How the caves echo back my moans 

From some invisible waste ! 

May we not rest, dear Help ? Oh, no, 

Not on a road so steep ! 
Sweet Saviour ! Have we far to go ? 

Ah, how I long for sleep ! 

Loose sand — and all things sinking! Hark, 

The murmur of a sea ! 
Saviour! it is intensely dark; 

Is it near eternity ? 

Can I fall from Thee even now ? 

Both hands, dear Lord! both hands! 
Why dost thou lie so deep, so low, 

Thou shore of the Happy Lands ? 

Ah ! death is very, very wide, 

A land terrible and dry : 
If Thou, sweet Saviour ! hadst not died, 

Who would have dared to die ? 

Another fall !-Surely we steal 

On towards eternity : — 
Lord ! Is this death ? — I only feel 

Down in some sea with Thee. 



THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 



THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 

Gloom gathered round us every hour 
In that house of awful sorrow ; 

Each day lay darker and more dark 
In the shadow of its morrow. 

And yet no cloud that came passed on, 

No yesterdays went by ; 
'Twas a storm that gathers without wind, 

Until it chokes the sky. 

Time hungered for some dreadful change. 

And yet grew sick with fear, 
Impatient at the slow approach 

Of that which was too near. 

But we never named what we most feared ; 

It was only understood ; 
And Ave lived on an unspoken faith 

That somehow God was good. 

Yes 1 God was good : on that one thought 
The whole day we were leaning : 

Yet we dared not put it into words, 
Lest it should lose its meaning. 

Of many things, of many wants 
We had to be reminded : 



222 THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 

We felt our way about the house 
Like men that had been bHnded. 

We scarce breathed anything but grief : 

We ahiiost held our breath : 
We were inwardly unmanned and numbed 

With the looking out for death. 

Each told to each what each well knew, 

Each told it o'er and o'er : 
Questions we asked which we ourselves 

Had answered just before. 

From its intensity of aim 

Our own life aimless, seemed : 

The very stern rcahty 

Made us almost think we dreamed. 

The days could somehow drag themselves, 

Like wounded worms along : 
But I know not how we lived those nights, 

Save that God made us strong. 

And somehow all things turned to fears ; 

And foolish things became 
Fountains of unrefreshing tears 

Which burned the eyes like flame. 

Oh what a life it was, a life 

Of such entangled woe, 
Like the panic of a shipwrecked crew, — 

Only this was so slow : — 



THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 2 23 

Entangled with minute details, 

Needful, but out of season. 
Yet a woe of such simplicity 

As almost troubled reason. 

God shut us up there seven long weeks, 

As in some unworldly ark, — 
And we learned what He had meant us learn, — ■ 

To live and to see in the dark. 

Darkness is easier far to bear 

Than that unrestful gloom, 
Where the light snows in, and vaguely haunts 

The shapes and the things in the room. 

One of those darknesses was this, 

In which God loves to dwell, 
One of those restful silences 

In which He is audible. 

Slowly light came, the thinnest dawn, 

Not sunshine to our night, 
A new, more spiritual thing, 

An advent of pure light : 

Perhaps not light ; rather the soul 

Which just then came to see, 
And saw through its world-darkened life, 

And saw eternity. 



224 



THE HOUSE OF MOURNING. 



God ! it was a time divine, 
Rich epoch of calm grace, 

A pressing of our hearts to Thine 
In mystical embrace. 

The work of years was done in days, 
Fights won, and trophies given : 

For sorrow is the atmosphere 
Which ripens hearts for heaven. 

1 saw dear souls with seemliest haste 
Array themselves in light. 

And weave themselves angehc robes 
Out of the utter night. 

Eternal thoughts in simplest words 
Fell meekly from their tongue, . 

While the fragrance of eternity 
To their silent presence clung. 

For monthlike days, for yearlike nights, 

I saw all this, about me : 
It should have been my work ; but God 

Had to do the work without me. 



I only saw how I had missed 
A thousand things from blindness. 

How all that I had done appeared 
Scarce better than unkindness. 



THE VIOLENCE OF GRIEF. 225 

How that to comfort those that mourn 

Is a thing for saints to try ; 
Yet haply God might have done less, 

Had a saint been there, not I. 

Alas ! we have so little grace, 

With love so little burn, 
That the hardest of our works for God 

Is to comfort those who mourn. 



THE VIOLENCE OF GRIEF. 

O merciful Father the blow that we feared, 
Though for long it hath threatened and slowly 

hath neared, 
Hath come all at once, hath too suddenly come, 
And laid waste the fair garden that once was 

our home. 

We had thought to have borne it far better 

than this, 
Nor have grudged to Thy will our poor tribute 

of bliss ; 
In our minds we had looked in the face of this 

woe, 
And had fixed how to kneel to encounter the 
blow. 

15 



226 THE VIOLENCE OF GRIEF. 

But it seems as if sorrow did more than make 

haste, 
And had leaped from the clouds down upon 

us at last : 
And the grief most surprises, looks most like 

a wrong, 
Because we have looked for its coming so 

long. 

Nay, we fain would believe that the blow had 
not come, 

That it was but a dream, this dumb, desolate 
home. 

That the eyes were not closed, could not pos- 
sibly close. 

In the light of whose love was our only re- 
pose. 

All grief has its limits, all chastenings their 

pause ; 
Thy love and our weakness are sorrow's two 

laws ; 
No burdens of Thine are too great to be borne, 
Didst Thou know how this sorrow would leave 

us forlorn ? 

We had said we were ready, whatever should 
chance ; 

Of our hearts' preparations we made a ro- 
mance ; 



THE VIOLENCE OF GRIEF. 2 2'] 

And we bade Thee sincerely to strike at Thy 

will; 
Thou hast struck, but how far are our hearts 

from being still ' 

What a voiceless despair, what a tempest of 
tears, 

What a perfect rebellion and clamour of fears, 

What murmurs unchecked, tempers unrecon- 
ciled ! 

All within us, but faith, is disordered and wild. 

Yet see how we crouch to Thee, Lord ! after 
all; 

We wished Thee far off while the blow did not 
fall, 

And now our sole joy is to feel Thee so 
near. 

And we fling ourselves down on Thy lap with- 
out fear. 

We fling ourselves on Thee with passionate 
trust ; 

Thou art always most loving when forced to 
be just ; 

And our ravings and tears are no worse in 
Thine eyes, 

Than the newly-weaned mountain-lamb's piti- 
ful cries. 



226 THE VIOLENCE OF GRIEF. 

But it seems as if sorrow did more than make 

haste, 
And had leaped from the clouds down upon 

us at last : 
And the grief most surprises, looks most like 

a wrong, 
Because we have looked for its coming so 

long. 

Nay, we fain would believe that the blow had 
not come, 

That it was but a dream, this dumb, desolate 
home. 

That the eyes were not closed, could not pos- 
sibly close. 

In the light of whose love was our only re- 
pose. 

All grief has its limits, all chastenings their 

pause ; 
Thy love and our weakness are sorrow's two 

laws ; 
No burdens of Thine are too great to be borne, 
Didst Thou know how this sorrow would leave 

us forlorn ? 

We had said we were ready, whatever should 
chance ; 

Of our hearts' preparations we made a ro- 
mance ; 



THE VIOLENCE OF GRIEF. 2 2'] 

And we bade Thee sincerely to strike at Thy 

will; 
Thou hast struck, but how far are our hearts 

from being still ' 

What a voiceless despair, what a tempest of 
tears, 

What a perfect rebellion and clamour of fears, 

What murmurs unchecked, tempers unrecon- 
ciled ! 

All within us, but faith, is disordered and wild. 

Yet see how we crouch to Thee, Lord ! after 
all; 

We wished Thee far off while the blow did not 
fall, 

And now our sole joy is to feel Thee so 
near. 

And we fling ourselves down on Thy lap with- 
out fear. 

We fling ourselves on Thee with passionate 
trust ; 

Thou art always most loving when forced to 
be just ; 

And our ravings and tears are no worse in 
Thine eyes, 

Than the newly-weaned mountain-lamb's piti- 
ful cries. 



230 DEEP GRIEF. 

The dull blind ache is worse to bear • 
Than blow, or wound, or smart. 

Deeper and deeper in my soul 
The weight of grief is stealing, 

And, strange to say, I feel it more 
When it has sunk past feeling. 

O grief ! when thou wert fresh and sharp. 

Part of hfe felt thy blow ; 
But, grown the habit of my heart, 

Thou art my whole life now. 

Most sovereign when least sensible, 

Most seen when out of sight, 
Thou art the custom of the day, 

And the haunting of the night. 
Oh that they would not comfort me ! 

Deep grief cannot be reached; 
Wisdom, to cure a broken heart. 

Must not be wisdom preached. 

Deep grief is better let alone ; 

Voices to it are swords ; 
A silent look will soothe it more 

Than the tenderness of words. 

Oh speak not ! I will do my work, 
Nay, more work than my share ; 

For to feel that it is idle grief 
Is what deep grief cannot bear. 



GRIEF AND LOSS. 23 1 

Deep grief is not a past event, 

It is a life, a state. 
Which habit makes more terrible, 

And age more desolate. 

But am I comfortless ? Oh no ! 

Jesus this pathway trod ; 
And deeper in my soul than grief 

Art Thou, my dearest God ! 

Good is that darkening of our lives, 

Which only God can brighten : 
But better still that hopeless load, 

Which none but God can lighten. 



GRIEF AND LOSS. 

Lord ! art Thou weary of my cry, 
My unrepressed complaint ? 

The more Thy hand upholdeth me 
The more I seem to faint. 

Alas ! had ever grief of man 
Such discontent as mine ? 

Yet how I crave to have my will 
Simply content with Thine ; 

Bear with me, patient God of Job ! 
Bear with Thy weakly child ; 



32 GRIEF AND LOSS. 

My thoughts are fevered with my grief, 
My heart is going wild. 

From some abyss these causeless bursts 

Of stormy sorrow flow ; 
It seems as if nor outward thing, 

Nor inward, brought the woe. 

All of itself it comes, and sweeps 

The landmarks quite away ; 
And these sudden tempests mostly come 

On the eve of a quiet day. 

There is some change within my grief. 

Some shifting of my cross : 
What overweights me is not grief, 

It is the sense of loss. 

What was a grief is now a loss, 

A stationary want, 
An absence felt in every room, 

In each familiar haunt. 

My God ! how petulant I am. 

How hard to please in grief, 
For ever making fresh complaint 

Of what should be relief ! 

But, Lord ! Thou lovest we should speak. 
Nor silent bear our pain , 



GRIEF AND LOSS. 233 

The look of Thy forbearing love 
Allures us to complain. 

Oh loss is grief's most joyless side, 

Grief's least religious state : 
'Tis sorrow most unreconciled, 

Because most like to fate. 

Loss is a sense upon whose nerve 
Life's ceaseless weight must press, 

A pain too dull and equable 
To vary its distress. 

Loss is a thing so multiplied, 

So many-shaped a grief, 
So echoing every sound of Hfe, 

That there is no relief. 

I seemed to have him while I grieved ; 

At least grief was no void ; 
In some strange way the vehement woe 

My sinking spirits buoyed. 

Fresh grief can occupy itself 

With its own recent smart ; 
It feeds itself on outward things, 

And not on its own heart. 

New sorrow never goads : it seems 
To fill and occupy ; 



234 GRIEF AND LOSS. 

But I am goaded to despair 
By this blind vacancy : 

And then it is such calm despair, 
Such a mute and passive pain, 

That they who love me smile, and say,- 
That I am myself again ! 

I move about, and do my work. 

That old routine of yore ; 
But, if I seem to sorrow less, 

It is to miss him more. 

When I have missed him most all day, 

I have him in my dreams ; 
And then how worse than the first loss 

The dismal waking seems ! 

This sense of loss, — oh can it last ? 

Or, if it lasts, be borne ? 
The extremity that comes at night 

Has a worse extreme at morn. 

My sorrow could defend itself. 
Or at least could live apart ; 

But the loss intrudes from every side 
On my defenceless heart. 

The present is so like the past, 
Yet so terribly unlike, 



GRIEF AND LOSS. 235 

That all life's touches do not touch, 
But cut and bruise and strike. 

If it was more unbearable 

So stormily to grieve, 
The hopelessness of my great loss 

Is harder to believe : — 

Worse to believe, — and yet alas ! 

Worse to be borne as well. 
Because it makes life felt to be 

So quite impossible. 

Is it, O Lord ! that I too much 
On creature's love have leaned ? 

Else why this void of all things now, 
This pain of being weaned ? 

Sorrow by its own nature is 

In league with self-deceit: 
Its very grace improves its skill 

More grace to countei'feit. 

Sorrow indulged must always make 

The grace within us less ; 
Man's sorrow at its best must be 

A form of selfishness,^ 

The gracefulest of all self-loves, 

But a self-worship still, 
A waste of heart whose deepest depths 

It is Thy right to fill. 



236 THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK. 

Faith does not know of empty hearts ; 

They should be full of Thee, 
And to be full of Thee alone 

Is their eternity. 

All life is loss ; for it delays 

The vision of Thy Face : 
Yet nothing, Lord ! is lost to him 

Who hath not lost Thy grace. 



THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK. 

The Shadow of the Rock ! 
Stay, Pilgrim! stay ! 
Night treads upon the heels of day ; 
There is no other resting-place this way. 
The Rock is near, 
The well is clear, 
Rest in the Shadow of the Rock. 

The Shadow of the Rock! 
The Desert wide 
Lies round thee like a trackless tide, 
In waves of sand forlornly multiplied. 
The sun is gone. 
Thou art alone. 
Rest in the Shadow of the Rock. 



THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK. 237 

The Shadow of the Rock, 
All come alone, 
All, ever since the sun hath shone, 
Who travelled by this road have come alone. 
Be of good cheer, 
A home is here. 
Rest in the Shadow of the Rock. 

The Shadow of the Rock! 
Night veils the land ; 
How the palms whisper as they stand ! 
How the well tinkles faintly through the sand ! 
Cool water take 
Thy thirst to slake. 
Rest in the Shadow of the Rock. 

The Shadow of the Rock ! 
Abide ! Abide ! 
This Rock moves ever at thy side, 
Pausing to welcome thee at eventide. 
Ages are laid 
Beneath its shade. 
Rest in the Shadow of the Rock. 

The Shadow of the Rock ! 
Always at hand, 
Unseen it cools the noon-tide land, 
And quells the fire that flickers in the sand. 



238 THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK 

It comes hi sight 
Only at night, 
Rest in the Shadow of the Rock. 

The Shadow of the Rock! 
Mid skies storm-riven 
It gathers shadows out of heaven, 
And holds them o'er us all night cool and even. 
Through the charmed air 
Dew falls not there,' 
Rest in the Shadow of the Rock. 

The Shadow of the Rock ! 
To angel's eyes 
This Rock its shadow multiplies, 
And at this hour in countless places lies. 
One Rock, one Shade, 
O'er thousands laid, 
■ Rest in the Shadow of the Rock. 

The Shadow of the Rock! 
To weary feet, 
That have been diligent and fleet, 
The sleep is deeper and the shade more sweet. 
O weary ! rest, 
Thou art sore pressed, 
Rest in the Shadow of the Rock. 

The Shadow of the Rock! 
Thy bed is made ; 



A CHILD'S DEATH. 239 

Crowds of tired souls like thine are laid 
This night beneath the self-same placid shade. 

They who rest here 

Wake with heaven near, 
Rest in the Shadow of the Rock. 

The Shadow of the Rock ! 
Pilgrim ! sleep sound ; 
In night's swift hours with silent bound 
The Rock will put thee over leagues of ground, 
Gaining more way 
By night than day ; 
Rest in the Shadow of the Rock. 

The Shadow of the Rock ! 
One day of pain 
Thou scarce wilt hope the Rock to gain, 
Yet there wilt sleep thy last sleep on the plain; 
And only wake 
In heaven's day-break, 
Rest in the Shadow of the Rock. 



A CHILD'S DEATH. 

Thou touchest us lightly, O God ! in out 

grief; 
But how rough is Thy touch in our prosperous 

hours ! 



240 A CHILD'S DEATH. 

All was bright, but Thou earnest, so dreadful 

and brief. 
Like a thunderbolt falling in gardens of flowers. 

My children ! My children ! they clustered all 

round me, 
Like a rampart which sorrow could never 

break through ; 
Each change in their beautiful lives only bound 

me 
In a spell of delight which no care could undo. 

But the eldest ! O Father ! how glorious he 
was, 

With the soul looking out through his fountain- 
like eyes ; 

Thou lovest Thy Sole-born ! And had I not 
cause 

The treasure Thou gavest me, Father! to 
prize ? 

But the lily-bed lies beaten down by the rain, 
And the tallest is gone from the place where 

he grew ; 
My tallest ! my fairest ! Oh let me complain ; 
For all life is unroofed, and the tempests beat 

through. 



A CHILD'S DEATH. 2\\ 

I murmur not, Father ! My will is with Thee ; 
I knew at the first, that my darling was Thine : 
Hadst Thou taken him earlier, O Father, — but 

see! 
Thou hadst left him so long that I dreamed he 

was mine. 

Thou hast taken the fairest : he was fairest to 

me; 
Thou hast taken the fairest : 'tis always Thy 

way; 
Thou hast taken the dearest : was he dearest 

to Thee ? 
Thou art welcome, thrice welcome : — ^yet woe 

is the day ! 

Thou hast honored my child by the speed of 

Thy choice, 
Thou hast crowned him with glory, o'erwhelmed 

him with mirth : 
He sings up in heaven with his sweet-sounding 

voice. 
While I, a sainfs mother, am weeping on 

earth. 

Yet oh for that voice, which is thrilling through 

heaven. 
One moment my ears with its music to slake ! 
36 



242 A CHILD'S DEATH. 

Oh no ! not for worlds would I have him re- 
given, 

Yet I long to have back what I would not re- 
take. 

I grudge him, and grudge him not! Father! 
Thou knowest 

The foolish confusions of innocent sorrow; 

It is thus in Thy husbandry. Saviour ! Thou 
sowest 

The grief of to-day for the grace of to-mor- 
row. 

Thou art blooming in heaven, my Blossom, my 
Pride ! 

And thy beauty makes Jesus and Angels more 
glad: 

Saints' mothers have sung when their eldest- 
born died, 

Oh why, my own saint ! is thy mother so 
sad? 

Go, go with thy God, with thy Saviour, my 

child ! 
Thou art His ; I am His ; and thy sisters are 

His : 
But to-day thy fond mother with sorrow is 

wild ! — 
To think that her son is an angel in bliss ! 



THE LAND BEYOND THE SEA. 243 

Oh forgive me, dear Saviour ! on heaven's 

bright shore 
Should I still in my child find a separate joy : 
While I lie in the light of Thy Face evermore, 
May I think heaven brighter because of my 

boy? 



THE LAND BEYOND THE SEA. 

The Land beyond the Sea ! 

When will life's task be o'er ? 

When shall we reach that soft blue shore, 

O'er the dark strait whose billows foam and 

roar? 
When shall we come to thee, 
Calm Land beyond the Sea ? 

The Land beyond the Sea ! 

How close it often seems, 

When flushed with evening's peaceful gleams ; 

And the wistful heart looks o'er the strait, and 

dreams ! 
"It longs to fly to thee. 
Calm Land beyond the Sea ! 

The Land beyond the Sea ! 
Sometimes distinct and near 
It grows upon the eye and ear, 



244 THE LAND BEYOND THE SEA. 

Arid the gulf narrows to a threadlike' mere ; 
We seem half way to thee, 
Calm Land beyond the Sea ! 

The Land beyond the Sea ! 

Sometimes across the strait, 

Like a drawbridge to a castle gate. 

The slanting sunbeams lie, and seem to wait 

For us to pass to thee, . ; 

Calm Land beyond the Sea ! ; 

i 

The Land beyond the Sea ! \ 

Oh how the lapsing years, ■] 

Mid our not unsubmissive tears, '\ 
Have borne, now singly, now in fleets, the biers • \ 

Of those we love to thee, ' 

Calm Land beyond the Sea! J 

The Land beyond the Sea ! . \ 

How dark our present home \ \ 

By the dull beach and sullen foam \ 

How wearily, how drearily we roam, '| 

With arms outstretched to thee, | 

Calm Land beyond the Sea ! ,i 

The Land beyond the Sea ! ' { 

When will our toil be done ? :; 

Slow-footed years ! more swiftly run j 



THE SHORE OF ETERNITY,. 245 

Into the. gold of that unsetting sun ! 
Homesick we are for thee, 
Calm Land beyond the Sea ! 

The Land beyond the Sea ! 

Why fadest thou in light ? 

Why art thou better seen towards night ? 

Dear Land ! look always plain, look always 

bright, 
That we may gaze on thee. 
Calm Land beyond the Sea ! 

The Land beyond the Sea ! 

Sweet is thine endless rest. 

But sweeter far that Father's Breast 

Upon thy shores eternally possest ; 

For Jesus reigns o'er thee. 

Calm Land beyond the Sea ! 



THE SHORE OF ETERNITY. 

Alone ! to land alone upon that shore ! 

With no one sight that we have seen before,— 

Things of a different hue, 

And the sounds all new, 
And fragrances so sweet the soul may faint. 
Alone ! Oh that first hour of being a saint ! 



246 THE SHORE OF ETERNITY. 

Alone ! to land alone upon that shore ! 

On which no wavelets lisp, no billows roar, 
Perhaps no shape of ground, 
Perhaps no sight or sound. 

No forms of earth our fancies to arrange, — 

But to begin alone that mighty change ! 

Alone ! to land alone upon that shore ! 
Knowing so well we can return no more : 

No voice or face of friend. 

None with us to attend 
Our disembarking on that awful strand. 
But to arrive alone in such a land ! 

Alone ! to land alone upon that shore : 
To begin alone to live for evermore, 
To have no one to teach 
The manners or the speech 
Of that new life, or put us at our ease : — 
Oh that we might die in pairs or companies ! 

Alone ! No ! God hath been there long before, 
Eternally hath waited on that shore 

For us who were to come 

To our eternal home ; 
And He hath taught His angels to prepare 
In what way we are to be welcomed there. 

Like one that waits and watches He hath sate. 
As if there were none else for whom to wait, 



THE SHORE OE ETERNITY. 247 

Waiting for us, for us 
Who keep him waiting thus, 

And who bring less to satisfy His love 

Than any other of the souls above. 

Alone ? The God we know is on that shore. 
The God of whose attractions we know more 
Than of those who may appear 
Nearest and dearest here : 
Oh is He not the life-long friend we know 
More privately than any friend below ? 

Alone ? The God we trust is on that shore. 
The Faithful One whom we have trusted more 
In trials and in woes 
Than we have trusted those 
On whom we leaned most in our earthly strife, — 
Oh we shall trust Him more in that new life ! 

Alone ? The God we love is on that shore, 

Love not enough, yet whom we love far more, 
And whom we've loved all through, 
And with a love more true 

Than other loves, — yet now shall love Him 
more : — 

True love of Him begins upon that shore ! 

So not alone we land upon that shore : 
'TwilLbe as though we had been there before ; 



248 PARADISE. 

We shall meet more we know 
Than we can meet below, 
And find our rest like some returning dove, 
And be at home at once with our Eternal Love 



PARADISE. 

O Paradise ! O Paradise ! 

Who doth not crave for rest ? 
Who would not seek the happy land, 
Where they that loved are blest ; 
Where loyal hearts and true, 
Stand ever in the light, 
All rapture through and through. 
In God's most holy sight ? 

O Paradise ! O Paradise ! 

The world is growing old ; 
Who would not beat rest and free 
Where love is never cold, 
Where loyal hearts, and true, 
Stand ever in the light, 
All rapture through and through, 
In God's most holy sight ? 

O Paradise ! O Paradise ! 

Wherefore doth death delay. 
Bright death, that is the welcome dawn 

Of our eternal day ; 



PARADISE. 249 

Where loyal hearts, and true, 

Stand ever in the light, 
All rapture through and through, 

In God's most holy sight ? 

Paradise ! O Paradise ! 
'Tis weary waiting here ; 

1 long to be where Jesus is, 
To feel, to see Him near ; 

Where loyal hearts, and true, 

Stand ever in the light. 
All rapture through and through. 

In God's most holy sight. 

Paradise ! O Paradise ! 
I want to sin no more ; 

1 want to be as pure on earth 

As on thy spotless shore ; 
Where loyal hearts, and true, 

Stand ever in the light. 
All rapture through and through, 

In God's most holy sight. 

O Paradise ! O Paradise ! 

I greatly long to see 
The special place my dearest Lord 
Is destining for me ; 

Where loyal hearts, and true, 
Stand ever in the liffht. 



250 HEAVEN. 

All rapture through and through. 
In God's most holy sight. 

O Paradise ! O Paradise ! 

I feel 'twill not be long; 
Patience ! I almost think I hear 
Faint fragments of thy song ; 
Where loyal hearts, and true, 

Stand ever in the hght. 
All rapture through and through. 
In God's most holy sight. 



HEAVEN. 

Oh what is this splendour that beams on me 
now, 
This beautiful sunrise that dawns on my 
soul, 
While faint and far off land and sea lie be- 
low, 
And under my feet the huge golden clouds 
roll ? 

To what mighty king doth this city belong. 
With its rich jewelled shrines, and its gar- 
dens of flowers, 



i 



HE AVE I/. 251 

With its breaths of sweet incense, its measures 
of song, 
And the light that is gilding its numberless 
towers ? 

See ! forth from the gates, like a bridal 
array. 
Come the princes of heaven, how bravely 
they shine ! 
'Tis to welcome the stranger to show me the 
way, 
And to tell me that all I see round me is 
mine. 

There are millions of saints in their ranks and 
degrees, 
And each with a beauty and crown of his 
own; 
And there, far outnumbering the sands of the 
seas, 
The nine rings of Angels encircle the throne. 

And oh if the exiles of earth could but wir 
One sight of the beauty of Jesus above, 
From that hour they would cease to be able 
to sin, 
And earth would be heaven ; for heaven is 
love. 



252 HEAVEN. 

But words may not tell of the Vision of 
Peace, 
With its worshipful seeming, its marvellous 
fires ; 
Where the soul is at large, where its sorrows 
all cease, 
And the gift has outbidden its boldest de- 
sires. 

No sickness is here, no bleak bitter cold. 
No hunger, debt, prison, or weariful toil ; 

No robbers to rifle our treasures of gold, 
No rust to corrupt, and no canker to spoil. 

My God ! and it was but a short hour ago 

That I lay on a bed of unbearable pains ; 
All was cheerless around me, all weeping and 
woe ; ■ 

Now the wailing is changed ' to angelical 
" ■ strains. - - 

Because I served Thee, were life's pleasures all 

lost ? 
Was it gloom, pain, or blood, that won heaven 

for me ? 
Oh no! one enjoyment alone could life 

boast. 
And that, dearest Lord 1 was my service ol 

Thee. 



HEAVEN. 253 

I had hardly to give ; 'twas enough to receive, 
Only not to impede the sweet grace from 
above ; 
And, this first hour in heaven, I can hardly 
believe 
In so o-reat a reward for so little a love. 







' 

A 



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1 



